2008-04-01
Abstract
Increasing number of legitimate sites hosting malware, compromised sites remaining infected for longer.
Copyright © 2008 Virus Bulletin
Key findings of a study by ScanSafe of the more than 80 billion corporate web requests it scanned and 800 million web threats it blocked in 2007 include that viruses, trojans, password stealers and other forms of malware are becoming more prevalent, that an increasing number of legitimate sites are unwittingly hosting malware, and that compromised sites are remaining infected for longer – in some cases for more than two months.
The news come just weeks after reports of a major new outbreak of website infections, with as many as 20,000 legitimate sites thought to have been hit with a single wave of malicious iframe insertion attacks. Unfortunately it seems that not even anti-malware vendors are immune, with Trend Micro having to issue a warning on its Japanese site last month that some of its web pages had been infected – and in late December security firm CA was among thousands of legitimate websites to have been infected by hackers taking advantage of an SQL injection vulnerability. All of the above should serve as a reminder to web administrators to ensure that their web servers are properly secured.
