The South Asian country of Myanmar is now No. 1 in the world of online cyberattacks.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, now holds the top spot as the source of the most online attack Web traffic, according to the security firm Akamai.
Akamai's "State of the Internet" report tallied the amount of cyberattack Web traffic in the first quarter of 2011, and found that 13 percent of all attack traffic originated in Myanmar.
This is quite a shift for Myanmar, which did not even place in the top 10 last year, eSecurity Planet, which analyzed the report, wrote.
The U.S. came in second with 10 percent of all online attack traffic; with 9.1 percent, Taiwan was third; Russia placed fourth (down from No. 1 last year) and China rounded out the top five.
Though the report positions Myanmar as the new bigwig for attack traffic, the shadowy players in the world of international cybercrime could theoretically be using the country as a sort of way station.
Akamai's data only analyzes "the last networking hop before a connection comes in," eSecurity Planet said. That means cybercriminals could simply be routing their online attacks through servers in Myanmar as a way to evade detection and throw enforcement agencies off their scent.
