Relatively small neighbors Romania and Bulgaria have made it to the top 4 sources of threats in Verizon's yearly report on cyberattacks for 2012.

Acording to the phone operator's Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR) for last year, the most frequent source of cyberattacks was China.

30% of attacks came from there and most of them were aimed at effecting espionage, according to the study..

China is then followed by Romania, with a staggering 28% of attacks, to be followed by the US with 18% of attacks.

Bulgaria ranks fourth - a source of 7% of global cyberattacks for 2012.

Attacks from Bulgaria, Romania and US were chiefly aiming at extracting some financial benefit, says Verizon.

The DBIR top ten is complted by Russia, the Netherlands, Armenia, Germany, Colombia and Brazil.

The study is based on some 47,000 reported cyberattacks and 621 confirmed breaks into security systems around the globe.