Malware More Likely to Come From Legitimate Sites

Malware More Likely to Come From Legitimate Sites

Google has released new data that shows simply avoiding ‘bad’ websites is no longer enough to avoid malware infections.–PC Pitstop

By Stu Sjouwerman, for KnowBe4.com Security Awareness Training

Avoiding Bad Sites Is No Longer Enough

If in the past your way to stay safe on the Web was to not visit dodgy sites like gambling, porn, piracy or other “unsafe district” locations, that strategy no longer works. Google released brand new data today that shows you are much more likely to be infected by malware visiting normal websites that have been compromised by the bad guys and made into drive-by attack territory.

Google’s Safe Browsing program flags and warns users about well over 10K malicious and/or suspicious website every day. The scary part of the report is the amount of legitimate compromised sites hosting malware compared to sites specifically developed by the bad guys for malicious purposes. Here are the numbers; first week of Jun/2013, 37,000 legitimate sites were compromised to host malware. At the same time, they found only 4,000 sites that were developed for the unique purpose of infecting people. The upshot?

Nine out of ten times your malware infection comes from a legit site that has been compromised!

Here is the graph-Article continued here

This excerpt appears with permission from knowbe4.com.

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