Russia and Turkey named 'most dangerous' web countries

AVG ranks the UK as safer than the US, but not as safe as France and Japan

Users in Turkey and Russia are at the greatest risk of online attacks, according to a recent report.

Security firm AVG said that the two nations had the highest concentration of attack attempts per citizen. The report compared attack attempts collected by its Threat Labs to the total number of its users in a country.

AVG said that one in 10 of its Turkish users had been subject to an attack attempt this year. In Russia, meanwhile, one in every 14 users had been attacked.

Ranking third on the list was Armenia, with one of every 24 users subject to attack, followed by Azerbaijan and Bangladesh.

The UK ranked 31 on the list, with one in 63 users attacked. Users in the US had a one in 48 chance of attack, earning that country the ninth spot on the list.

Among the safest countries to surf were Japan, which logged attacks on just one in every 404 users. Taiwan, Argentina and France were also noted for low attack levels.

AVG chief research officer Roger Thompson said that while the report generally indicated the risk residents take in visiting sites in their native countries and languages, users who are travelling in high-risk countries should exercise extra caution.

"If you are going online in one of those countries in an internet café or some place where you don't know whether data is being sniffed, you should be particularly careful," he said.

In general, Thompson suggested that users protect themselves by using "safe hex" techniques such as keeping different ID and password information for each site.

"If you have only got one ID and password, you are only as good as the security of every one of them," he said.

"If one of them falls and you have only got one user name and password, then you've let out the keys to the kingdom."