US hackers are the most feared

Forget China - the good old US of A is the place to be worried about...

Security outfit McAfee has named the US as the most likely source of cyber attacks, beating out the widely perceived favourites China and Russia.

McAfee conducted a study that questioned 600 IT and security executives from various countries to discuss, rate and rank their biggest Internet security concerns. Most of the report just states the bleedin' obvious, except for the finding that the Americans are the most feared by the others.

With the recent scuffles between Google and the Chinese government it comes as no surprise that almost 75 per cent of respondents believed that the Chinese government was involved in cyber attacks against their country. However, the figures for both the US and Russia were identical at 60 per cent. The UK government came in third from last with only 50 per cent or so believing that it was involved in naughty cyber aggression activities.

Probably the most startling discovery was that it is the US, not China or Russia, that is feared the most. The majority of countries in the West listed the US ahead of China and Russia as the country "of most concern" when it came to attacks. McAfee reports that 36 per cent of all respondants said that the US represented their "greatest concern" to networks in their country and sector. The US edged out pre-report favourite China by three percentage points and Russia by an impressive 24 percentage points. 

Typically these insecurity vendor sponsored security reports cultivate an image of doom and gloom and this was no different, with quotes such as "the sitution will get worse not better in the future". This would seem to lead one to question whether McAfee's products are effective at doing their job.