About 33.4% of Internet users in Western Europe and North America were attacked at least once while browsing the web during the first half of 2012, according to a new report.
A report by Kaspersky Lab found that Italy and Spain were two worst affected countries with over 40% of computers faced cyber attack while browsing.
Leaving the two countries, the other countries fall under medium risk group, with 21%-40% of the computers faced cyber attack while online.
The study found that Denmark is one of the safest countries with less than 20% of users attacked during the period.
Most of the attacks in North America and Western Europe region were targeted to fish out financial information as large number of people use their bank cards for online shopping.
During the period large number of computers in these regions was infected with bots that collect financial data.
More than 70% of the attacks were Sinowal attacks, over 40% of the SpyEyes attacks, and about 25% of the Zbot (ZeuS) attacks reported in the region.
PayPal payment system and the online store eBay were two other major targets of cyber criminals account for 34% and 9% of all phishing attacks carried out in North America and Western Europe
Phishers also gained access to other confidential data, such as social security numbers, dates of birth, and CVV2 security codes for credit cards.
