The world's 10 biggest cybercrime hotspots in 2016, ranked

Cybercrime has been in the news recently, whether it was the hack of the Democratic Party in the US during the most recent presidential election, or a scam that sent fake Google Docs links to people's Gmail accounts.

But where does malware, hacking attempts, and other cybercrime actually come from?

American cybersecurity company Symantec released its latest internet security threat report in April which looked at which countries were the biggest sources of malware, spam, and phishing attacks.

Symantec logged every kind of online threat it came across, whether malware, spam, phishing, bots, or hacking attempts. It then attempted to find the source of those attacks, and compiled this ranking of countries, sorted by number of threats that originated from them.

Here are the 10 countries that were the source of the most cybercrime in 2016:

10. Vietnam — 2.16%

Vietnam was responsible for 2.16% of global threat detections in 2016 that Symantec found. That's up from 0.89% in 2015.

The country has also been the target of hacking attacks in 2016. In July it was found that Vietnam's biggest airline, Vietnam Airlines had been hacked into. And that malware may have spread to government agencies and banks.

9. Japan — 2.25%

Japan was the ninth-biggest source of cyber attacks, up from the twelfth-biggest in 2015. Japan has historically seen relatively little cybercrime, but that changed in 2015. A Trend Micro report in 2015 predicted a large spike in hacking in the country.

8. France — 2.35%

France accounted for 2.35% of threats detected globally by Symantec. France has been an emerging country for hacking and malware. Trend Micro released a report last year that examined the country's growing cybercrime problems.

7. The United Kingdom — 2.61%

The UK came in seventh in Symantec's ranking, the same position as 2015. Research from the Enigma Software Group released in March showed that London and Manchester are the most likely cities in the UK for computers to be infected with malware.

6. Russia — 3.07%

Russia came in sixth in Symantec's research, but that was up from eleventh in 2015. The country has seen a surge in the amount of threats detected, Symantec's report showed.

5. Germany — 3.35%

Germany came in at number five on Symantec's list, up from number eight last year. The country has been a target of malware in the past: In 2016 a German nuclear plant was found to be infected with computer viruses.

4. India — 5.11%

India actually went down Symantec's leaderboard of global threat detections. This year it's number four, whereas last year it was at number three. It was reported in February that Hitachi's ATM system in India had been compromised for two months.

3. Brazil —5.84%

Brazil has the dubious honour of entering Symantec's top three countries for threat detections. It has had a massive rise, up from number 10 last year. Security Intelligence published an overview of the trends in Brazilian malware back in July.

2. China — 9.63%

China was the second-biggest source of global threats detected by Symantec, down from the number one spot last year. CNBC reported in July that malware that originated in China had been found to have infected over 10 million Android phones.

1. The United States —23.96%

The US came out way in front of every other country on Symantec's list. Last year it was number two, with 18.89% of threats detected globally, but that has risen to 23.96%.

In 2016 a new kind of malware named Mirai spread around the world. And earlier this year, security journalist Brian Krebs claimed that the malware originated in the US.