Malaysia ranks 25th in the world spreading malware, a software intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems to web users, according to Kaspersky Lab's latest report.

The international software security group's director of APAC Global Research and Analysis Team, Vitaly Kamluk, said out of 283,799 malicious web infections detected worldwide between June and August this year, 0.21 percent came from Malaysia.

"The United States holds the highest number of malicious web infections at 32.02 percent, followed by Russia (11.09 percent), Germany (10.18 percent), United Kingdom (6.60 percent) and the Netherlands (6.44 percent)," he said at the launch of the group's latest product, The Kaspersky Anti-Targeted Attack Platform and Kaspersky Intelligence Security Services in Kuala Lumpur today.

He said the research found that this cyber attack was caused by a local host that would eventually cripple the computer system.

Kamluk urged local companies and organisations to be more vigilant in anticipation of a rise in cyber attacks, particularly in the region, as the attackers became more mature in mounting such attacks.

"We foresee the financial sector may be the main target of cyber attacks staged by foreign criminal groups, and the expansion of cyber sabotage incidents by these malicious entities."

- Bernama