Canada's 'riskiest online cities' ranked

February 22, 2012

Ont., B.C. cities top list; Quebec cities deemed low-risk

Burlington, Ont. has been named "Canada's riskiest online city" by internet security software firm Symantec for the second year in a row. The top four in the annual rankings released Wednesday were rounded out by three B.C. communities — Port Coquitlam, Vancouver and Langley.

Burlington had the highest rate per capita among 50 Canadian cities of three out of four types of cybercrime indicators measured in the survey — web attacks originating in the city, attempted malware infections on Symantec customers in the city, and spamming IP addresses originating in the city.

Burlington also had a high rate of bots – remotely controlled "zombie" computers infected by malware that carry out aggressive attacks on other computers, often unbeknownst to their owners. Malware-infected computers can also be used to deliver spam. Read more