Southeast Asia is the world's most dangerous internet-surfing region and Thailand is the third most-dangerous base for accessing the web, according to a worldwide study released Thursday.
According to a security study, Thailand is the third riskiest country in which to access the internet.
The US technology publication eWeek reported that research by internet security firms showed that Thai web users have a 20.8 per cent risk of being attacked or becoming infected with some sort of malware.
Only Indonesia, with a 23.5 per cent cyber-risk factor, and China with 21.3 per cent ranked higher than Thailand.
East and Southeast Asian countries took seven of the top 10 "most dangerous" spots to access the worldwide web and the internet, the study said.
According to the studies, web users in Thailand have "a greater than one-in-five chance of encountering malware each quarter" of the year.
Thailand has become well known to security researchers for more than a year, the study said. In April, 2011, PandaLabs ranked Thailand as No 2 among "most infected countries", and estimated that two-thirds of all internet users in the country were infected by some sort of malicious software.
The study cited by eWeek did not break down types of threats except in Indonesia, where internet users are subjected to widespread Trojan horses, software applications infected with malware that are then sold online.
The Security Threat Report 2013 was released Thursday by Sophos. It ranked Norway, Sweden and Japan as the safest countries to access the internet, all with infection and attack rates under three per cent.
The top 10 riskiest countries for malware and botnets, according to the security study:
1. Indonesia
2. China
3. Thailand
4. Philippines
5. Malaysia
6. India
7. Mexico
8. UAE
9. Taiwan
10. Hong Kong