New Delhi, March 20 (IANS): India has emerged as the fifth highest country that witnessed infections via DNS Hijacks in 2015, F-Secure Threat Round up Report said, adding DNS Hijacks brought bots, downloaders and information stealers last year.

The report details the trends and events in global cyber threats that hit consumers and companies last year and said the majority of the observed hijacks in 2015 occurred in Italy and Poland, followed by Egypt, Sweden, and India.

It said although domain name system (DNS) hijacks are a frequent type of attack in today's threat landscape, a significant spike in these hijacks was observed during the spring and summer months of 2015, specifically April through August.

DNS hijacks' basic aim is to alter the DNS configurations of their targets in order to monitor or manipulate internet traffic.

The report said various security flaws can lead to these DNS hijacks, including weak passwords, software vulnerabilities or malware.

DNS hijacks are an effective way for attackers to make contact with a large number of potential targets at once, as it provides them with the opportunity to compromise all of the devices connected to a particular network.

F-Secure is a Finland-based online security and privacy company that recently warned parents to become more aware of the threats posed by new Internet of Things (IoT) toys designed for kids.