ndia has risen to the fifth spot in the world's cybercrime ranking for 2009 from the 11th spot in 2008 and now only lags behind the US, China, Brazil and Germany.

The report, compiled by Internet security products firm Symantec, shows that cyber criminals are now increasingly going for Webbased attacks using socialnetworking sites compared to the earlier dependence on the e-mail route used to steal information about credit cards and bank accounts.

Symantec vice- president David Freer told Mail Today that social-networking sites are becoming the target for cyber attackers because these involve a set of like- minded people who trust each other. "It is the cultural trust that cyber attackers find easy to exploit," he added.

Freer explained that when a file is opened on a social-networking site it can result in a malicious ware being downloaded on to a PC, which is then used by the cybercriminals to steal the required data.