Over the past three years, the number of otherwise benign Web sites that get infected with malware has grown at an alarming rate. There are now over a hundred times more infected Web sites on the Internet than there were three years ago.
This is according to Costin Raiu, chief security expert, EEMEA, global research and analysis team at Kaspersky, who adds that online distribution of malware has increased by 15 000% since 2006.
“Malware authors have moved from the more traditional mechanism of infection by e-mail, into more sophisticated Web attacks. They are also targeting vulnerabilities in third-party applications like Adobe, SWF, Microsoft Office and all Web browsers.”
He says Kaspersky Lab detects about 30 000 new threats of malware each day. “In November, around three million signatures were detected.”
2010 threats
Raiu predicts that from 2010, there will be a rise in social engineering attacks. These attacks commonly use social networking sites as their attack vectors for scams.
According to Raiu, Web users should bear a few points in mind in order to stay safe. “Use strong passwords for hosting accounts. In addition, use SCP/SSH/SFTP to upload files instead of FTP; this prevents the passwords from being sent in cleartext over the Internet. Install and run a security solution, and maintain several different backups that can be used to quickly restore the Web site if it is compromised.”
Raiu says there are effective ways of mitigating the risk of infection. “Ensure that operating systems and third-party software products are fully up to date. Make use of a modern and up-to-date Web browser when interacting with the Internet. Don't assume a Web site is safe because it's high profile and, of course, use a modern Internet protection suite to secure your computer.”
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