We all know that cyber attacks are incredibly prevalent in the World Wide Web today, but until you see it with your own eyes it’s difficult to grasp just how frequent they really are. In order to raise awareness about how often such attacks occur, German telecommunications firm Deutsche Telecom has just launched a new, real-time visualization that shows infiltrations detected by its network as the attacks take place.

The map can be viewed at Sicherheitstacho.eu, and provides a kind of situational overview of cyber attacks across the globe in real-time, the instant they occur. Deutsche Telecom collects its data from 97 ‘honeypot’ sensors it has deployed around the world to track security breaches.

The sensors act as decoys for automated cyber attacks that target vulnerabilities in everything from websites and smartphones to network services and other systems. The interactive map illustrates where the attacks occur, while a live ticker provides more details on the services targeted and the country where the attacks originate from.

As well as protecting Deutsche Telecom’s own networks from cyber attacks, the data also allows it to warn its customers about just how prevalent these kinds of threat are. In order to try and curb such threats, the company also shares its data with computer security firms and local authorities.

Other statistics displayed on the map include a breakdown of attacks that have taken place over the last month, including the methods of attack that hackers most commonly deploy. For example, more than 27 million SMB protocol attacks were detected by Deutsch Telecom’s sensor network in the last thirty days, making it by far the most popular method.

The site also gives details on cyber attack ‘hot spots’, or the countries where the most attacks have originated from. That Russia tops the list with some 2.4 million attacks isn’t a surprise, but the fact that Taiwan comes in second with over 937,000 attacks in the last month might raise some eyebrows – particularly when there were only 168,000 attacks detected from the ‘other’ China.

Deutsche Telecom isn’t the first company to launch an interactive cyber attacks map. A similar service was launched last year by the Honeynet Project, although that service relies on fewer sensors.