Dubai: The UAE’s security threat landscape has increased last year due to surge in cybercriminals compared to 2011, a top official at research firm Symantec told Gulf News.

“Within the Middle East, the UAE ranks second for phishing hosts and fourth for outbound malicious code and spam,” said Bulent Teksoz, chief security strategist of emerging markets at Symantec.

He said the government authorities in the UAE are doing a lot as cyber security is a critical issue.

Overall, the UAE’s security threat profile ranking rose to 40 globally in 2012 compared to 46 in 2011.

Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report Volume 18 revealed a 42 per cent surge during 2012 in targeted attacks. Designed to steal intellectual property, these targeted cyber-espionage attacks are increasingly hitting the manufacturing sector as well as small businesses, which are the target of 31 per cent of these attacks. Small businesses are attractive targets and a way to ultimately reach larger companies via “watering hole” techniques. In addition, consumers remain vulnerable to ransomware and mobile threats, particularly on the Android platform.

Last year, mobile malware increased by 58 per cent, and 32 per cent of all mobile threats attempted to steal information, such as email addresses and phone numbers. Surprisingly, these increases cannot necessarily be attributed to the 30 per cent increase in mobile vulnerabilities.

“Even with legal crackdown on mobile spammers, SMS spam and SMiShing continue to grow at a rapid pace as there are billions of mobile phone subscribers who use text messaging. And more spam means greater annoyance and risk to consumers as many people trust messages that come directly to their phones or don’t necessarily think about what links they’re actually clicking,” Thomas Lippert, product management, Sophos, said in an emailed statement.

Saudi Arabia is ranked second globally after India and first in the Middle East region for spam in 2012, a significant increase from the nineteenth position globally in 2011.

“Saudi Arabia is rated high in spam rating globally and there is tremendous increase. For spammers, huge population and higher broadband growth plays key roles,” Teksoz said.

He said social media and mobility are growing at a faster pace in the UAE. “We expect more threat to the social media this year.”

“This year’s report shows that cybercriminals aren’t slowing down, and they continue to devise new ways to steal information from organisations of all sizes,” said Justin Doo, Security Practice Director at Symantec Middle East.

“The sophistication of attacks coupled with today’s IT complexities, such as virtualisation, mobility and cloud, require organisations to remain proactive and use ‘defence in depth’ security measures to stay ahead of attacks.”