In its recently released 2013 Threat Report, Security Labs - the global research team at security firm Websense - has revealed that worldwide cyber-attack trends have been witnessing explosive year-on-year growth of late.

According to the report - based on a year-on-year comparison of Web, email, data, mobile, and social media threats -, China takes the first spot among the top 10 most targeted countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The other nine countries on the top 10 list include the following, in order: Taiwan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Russian Federation, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The Threat Report further revealed that an average of 1719 attacks were faced by organisations for every 1000 users per week, and that shortened URLs had been used in 32 percent of malicious links in social media; with the US, Russia, and Germany being the top three countries that hosted malware.

Noting that the number of malicious Web-based attacks witnessed an approximately 600 percent increase year-on-year, Websense Security Labs VP Charles Renert said that the majority of these attacks - nearly 85 percent
- were staged on legitimate sites, and "challenge traditional approaches to security and trust."

Drawing attention to the "timed, targeted nature" of these advanced threats to cyber security, Renert said: "Only real-time security techniques, that inspect the entire lifecycle of a threat, can withstand the assault and prevent data theft."