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Quote:One in 10 web pages scrutinised by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user's PC.

Researchers from the firm surveyed billions of sites, subjecting 4.5 million pages to "in-depth analysis".

About 450,000 were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge.

A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer, the team report.

To address the problem, the researchers say the company has "started an effort to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious"...

Quote:FastMP3Search logo
StopBadware.org files complaint with FTC

StopBadware.org and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) have teamed up to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against FastMP3Search.com.ar for distributing badware to unsupecting Internet users.

FastMP3Search.com.ar is a site that offers MP3s for download -- however, it requires users to download a plugin in order to download these songs. Unfortunately, this plugin comes bundled with a ton of adware, Trojan horses, and other forms of badware -- none of which is disclosed to the user. We've written up an in-depth report on the FastMP3Search Plugin that explains all of the bad behaviors that users are subjected to when they download this application. For a summary of those behaviors, check out our blog post. Prof. John Palfrey has also posted his thoughts on the subject on his own blog.

Quote:StopBadware has analyzed 49,296 websites - sites submitted by trusted third parties to the StopBadware.org Badware Website Clearinghouse  - and identified the five web hosting companies with the largest number of infected sites residing on their servers. These five companies combined host a large number of websites that have been identified as distributing malicious software to Internet users.

Many of the sites listed in the Clearinghouse are otherwise innocent sites that have been hacked into by third parties. If a provider hosts a large number of sites that distribute badware, it's possible that the provider has unaddressed security vulnerabilities that increase the likelihood of the sites the provider hosts being hacked.

The company hosting the largest number of sites in the Clearinghouse is iPowerWeb, Inc., with 10,834 sites in the Clearinghouse. iPowerWeb is followed by Layered Technologies, ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc., Internap Network Services, and CHINANET Guangdong province network.

Quote:With e-mail's value as a malware delivery agent on the decline, writers of malicious software have boosted their efforts to infect Web sites with their nasty payloads.

Thousands of malicious Web sites are created on a daily basis to steal information from unsuspecting visitors or plant insidious software on their computers without their knowledge, according to security experts interviewed by TechNewsWorld.

On average, 5,000 new malicious Web sites are created daily on the Internet, estimated Ron O'Brien, a senior security analyst in the Burlington, Mass., offices of Sophos, an international network security company. That number hit a peak of 8,000 in April, he added...