A representative study on internet attack traffic has revealed that China is the country where the largest number of attacks originate.

By monitoring connections on the web it was shown that 43 per cent of online attacks originated in China, more than three times Indonesia in second place with 15 per cent.

And the researchers add that general internet users can keep themselves safe by frequently updating their software.

The attacks in the study refer to attempts by a computer to connect to specific ports on the internet, which would indicate a hacked or infected computer that was trying to connect to other computers.

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Massachusetts-based Akamai says 43 per cent of internet attacks originate in China according to a representative study. They about 200 computer systems around the world to monitor connections. The results of where most attacks originated from is shown in this infographic

The research was carried out by Akamai Technologies, based in Massachusetts, using 100 to 200 computers as ‘agents’ to create a representative view of internet traffic.

Part of their ‘State of the internet’ quarterly report, the findings showed that nearly half of all web attacks originated in China.

And most of them were directed towards ‘Port 80’, which is the port that web servers generally listen in on.

Akamai’s David Belson, Editor of the report, explains to MailOnline that the results should not be taken as a view of the Internet as a whole, but rather only as representative findings.

THE SHELLSHOCK BUG Last month warnings were issued about a 'catastrophic' security flaw affecting one of the most important interfaces powering the web. Known as the 'Bash' bug, the flaw could be 'bigger than Heartbleed' which put every computer user at risk earlier this year. Experts claim the bug may pose a serious threat to computers using Unix-based operating systems including Linux and Apple's Mac OS X - and in turn, could spread to all internet-connected devices. The bug, which also goes by the name 'Shellshock', could potentially allow hackers to gain access to every internet-enabled device in a person's home using something as innocuous as a smart lightbulb. The danger with this, in particular, is that once it has access to an internet-connected device it can jump onto others. This includes smart locks that open front doors. Advertisement

‘We’re basically saying from the systems we’ve got out there, 43 per cent of the attacks we observe are coming from China,’ he says.

When asked if he’d expect similar results if every connection on the internet was monitored, he says: ‘It’s hard to say if they’d be similar. Other attack traffic studies have placed China in top spot [like Akamai], others have placed other countries top.’

Explaining the method behind getting the data, Mr Belson says internet ports can be thought of as telephone extensions.

‘So, for example, human resources is extension 123, finance is 456 and legal is 789,’ he explains.

‘Think of somebody that’s randomly calling in to your company’s telephone number and punching in various extensions.’

He continues: ‘Port 80 is the port that web servers generally listen on, so it may be indicative of somebody trying to look for vulnerabilities in common web based software.’

The quarterly report, which has run since 2008, comes at quite a busy time for internet security, with the Shellshock bug making headlines in previous weeks.

Shellshock is a newly emerged major Internet threat that affects a common software tool found in many operating systems known as Bash, or Bourne-again Shell.

The findings were published in their quarterly 'State of the internet' report. However Editor David Belson tells MailOnline that the results do not necessarily represent the internet as a whole. He adds that people can keep themselves safe by keeping their software and systems up to date (stock image shown)

The biggest change from the previous report according to Mr Belson is that Indonesia jumped back up to second place.

In 2013 Indonesia jumped into the top slot and significantly increased the amount of attack traffic from the country, but it seemed to be a quarter anomaly.

Mr Belson says the results should not be too much of a cause for concern for general internet users, but he advises people to keep their systems up to date.

‘Generally the statement I would make would be to make sure you’re keeping your systems patched and up to date,’ he says.

‘There’s a reason Microsoft, Linux, Apple and so on publish updates on a regular basis.