Thailand is third in the world for location-based attacks due to its poor cybersecurity prevention measures, says the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA).
India and Brazil are the top two countries where attacks originate, deputy executive director Chaichana Mitrpant said yesterday.
"Thailand tops the list in Asean when it comes to website defacement, followed by Indonesia and Vietnam," he said.
In 2014, ETDA's Thai Computer Emergency Response Team (ThaiCert) found at least 3 million computers out of 8 million were affected with Botnet malware used by attackers to make it difficult to trace the source of malware or phishing websites.
Web defacement is a serious problem for Thailand and poses serious national security issues, particularly for government and education websites. To cope with web defacement, Mr Chaichana said the ETDA had introduced cybersecurity recommendations providing useful information to protect computers and networks from harm.
He predicts Thailand's cybersecurity threats this year will be in the fields of mobile security, the Internet of Things, internet-connected TV, web defacement and identity theft through social networking.
Under the cybersecurity draft bill endorsed by the cabinet early this month, ThaiCert will be transferred to the National Cybersecurity Agency to handle cybersecurity operations and data protection development. ThaiCert plans to increase its staff to 300 by 2018 from 60 now.
ETDA chief executive Surangkana Wayuparb agreed with criticism of Section 35 of the draft bill, noting it would give the government too much power over the internet.
"The bill will violate human rights and privacy as well as impede foreign investment," she said. "The Council of State is considering it before passing it to the National Legislative Assembly."