A Hacker’s Paradise: Top 20 Cities With Most Malware Infections

Every year, Enigma Software releases its list of the top 20 US cities with the most malware infections. The firm uses the telemetry data from its SpyHunter anti-spyware product to prepare this list.

This year’s data analyses a total of 250 cities with more than 25 million infections distributed between them. This list produces some very surprising results with multiple cities having infection rates much higher than the national average. In 2014, Tampa, Florida was the city that topped the charts of most malware-infected cities in the US. In 2015, Tampa maintains its top spot with 506% higher infections than the national average.

The next two top spots are acquired by St. Louis and Orlando that recorded about 400% higher infections than the national average. The top five was rounded out by Denver and Atlanta.

This data shows how infection rates vary from city to city. However, there isn’t a definite way to determine what makes people in one area more prone to malware attacks as a malware enters a computer via different routes. “We’re not saying that people in Tampa, Orlando, and St. Louis are visiting more adult websites than people in other cities,” Morganelli, Senior Vice President of Technology at Enigma Software says. “But that still is one of the biggest sources of the malware that our software detects.”

Mr. Morganelli outlines the fact that websites with malicious download links and adware are the biggest sources of malware. The growth of social networking websites has also provided more ways to cyber criminals to reach out to the people and trick them.

Let’s take at the complete top 20 list (Enigma Sotware)

Top Cities for Malware Infections in the First Half of 2015 and 2014

2015	2014	City	Infection rate
1	1	Tampa	506% higher than the national average
2	3	Saint Louis	392% higher than the national average
3	2	Orlando	375% higher than the national average
4	6	Denver	333% higher than the national average
5	4	Atlanta	327% higher than the national average
6	7	Newark	241% higher than the national average
7	5	Salt Lake City	223% higher than the national average
8	8	Madison	193% higher than the national average
9	9	Cleveland	184% higher than the national average
10	11	Cincinnati	170% higher than the national average
11	10	Little Rock	164% higher than the national average
12	12	Washington	162% higher than the national average
13	13	Miami	114% higher than the national average
14	17	Raleigh	98% higher than the national average
15	15	Irvine	96% higher than the national average
16	14	Pittsburgh	87% higher than the national average
17	47	Buffalo	87% higher than the national average
18	18	Minneapolis	85% higher than the national average
19	16	Richmond	81% higher than the national average
20	19	Seattle	72% higher than the national average

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