IT security and control firm Sophos has announced the availability of a new service, Sophos WebAlert, providing Web site administrators with notification if their site is hosting malicious code. Experts at the firm have produced a video demonstrating how the service works in simple terms using children's toys.
Sophos threat experts on average detect one new infected Web page every five seconds, and have identified over 380 000 new Web pages carrying malware since the beginning of September. Over 90% of these Web pages belong to legitimate sites that have been compromised through hacking techniques such as SQL Injection.
"Infected Web sites pose a threat to all Internet users - as simply visiting the site can infect unprotected Web users," says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa.
It is not just small Web sites that suffer from such attacks. Victims in the past few months have included BusinessWeek, Yahoo TV, British government Web sites, UNICEF, MySpace, Sony PlayStation, and the International Tennis Federation.
Sophos WebAlert is available at no additional change to customers of Sophos' Premium and Platinum Support services.
"It has been child's play for hackers to infect Web sites without the owner of the site ever being aware. Many companies have still not coded their Web sites correctly or taken the preventative measures necessary to stop infections like this occurring. Sophos WebAlert provides companies with visibility as to whether their Web sites are being attacked," Myroff says.
A video: "Sophos WebAlert explained with children's toys", is available for media to link to or embed on their own Web sites.
High-res version of video: http://www.viddler.com/explore/SophosLabs/videos/21/.
Lower-res version of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQSbJJCQrHg.
For more information on Sophos WebAlert, go to: http://www.sophos.com/webalert. For the podcast with Sophos principal virus researcher Fraser Howard, discussing the threat posed by Web infections, go to: http://podcasts.sophos.com/en/sophos-podcast-032.mp3
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Netxactics, trading as Sophos South Africa, is a South African-based company focused on the provision of security solutions. It is the Master Distributor for UK-based Sophos, one of the leaders in the provision of network access control and endpoint, e-mail and Web security and control solutions for the corporate environment. For more information, visit Sophos South Africa at www.sophos.co.za.
Sophos
Sophos enables enterprises worldwide to secure and control their IT infrastructure. Our network access control, endpoint, Web and e-mail solutions simplify security to provide integrated defences against malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse, data leakage and compliance drift. With over 20 years of experience, we protect over 100 million users in nearly 150 countries with our reliably engineered security solutions and services. Recognised for our high level of customer satisfaction, we have an enviable history of industry awards, reviews and certifications. Sophos is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK.
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