MANILA, Philippines — When it all comes down to it, you are three times more likely to have your PC infected with malware when surfing through religious and ideological sites than when browsing through pornographic websites, according to latest data from security firm Symantec.
In fact, pornographic sites are one of the least malware-infected sites on the Web, with blogs, personal sites, business, shopping, and educational sites taking the top five spots in Symantec’s most infected websites stated in its 2011 Internet Security Threat Report.
Based on Norton’s Safe Web data, as much as 61 percent of website hosting malware were not really created for the purpose of spreading viruses, but are actually “regular
Web sites that have been compromised and infected with malicious code.”
As for pornographic websites, the security firm hypothesized that owners of these sites actually benefit from keeping the Web free from viruses, so they tend to keep their sites malware-free.
“We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interest In keeping their sites malware-free — it’s not good for repeat business,” the report said.
In its 2011 threat report, Symantec reported that the year closed with an average of 9,314 malicious websites identified per day, up 53 percent from just 6,051 malicious websites identified in December 2010.
“Attackers keep changing their technique and they have become very sophisticated,” Symantec warned. “Badly-spelled, implausible email has been replaced by techniques such as ‘clickjacking’ or ‘likejacking’ where a user visits a website to watch a tempting video and the attackers use that click to post a comment to all the user’s friends on Facebook, thereby enticing them to click on the same malicious link.”
The firm said social engineering — the method used by cybercriminals to entice Internet users to click a link or an attachment file — is much easier to carry out in social networking sites, considering their highly social nature.
“Criminals take advantage of people’s needs and expectations,” the security vendor explained.
“All social media platforms are being exploited and in many different ways. But Facebook, as the most popular, provides some excellent examples on how social engineering flourishes in social media.”
Symantec’s Most Dangerous Web Site Categories for 2011
1. Blogs/Web Communications – 19.8 percent
2. Hosting/Personal hosted sites – 15.6 percent
3. Business/Economy – 10 percent
4. Shopping – 7.7 percent
5. Education/Reference – 6.9 percent
6. Technology, Computer & Internet – 6.9 percent
7. Entertainment & Music – 3.8 percent
8. Automotive – 3.8 percent
9. Health & Medicine – 2.7 percent
10. Pornography – 2.4 percent
