Malware attacks on the rise

Posted by Paul Sells

The number of malware attacks taking place online has risen dramatically in the past 12 months, it has been claimed.

According to a blog post by web security company Dasient, the likelihood of the average user visiting an infected web page over a three-month period is now 95 per cent.

The firm estimated that over one million sites were infected with malware in the final quarter of 2010, almost double the figure for 2009.

It also emphasised how 'malvertising' - malicious advertising that infects a computer - is becoming more and more popular among fraudsters, rising from 1.5 million to three million impressions per day over the same time period.

Dasient emphasised that social networking sites are quickly becoming the cybercriminal's platform of choice for spreading malware.

"We conducted some safe, benign experiments on various social networking sites, and found that infections can occur relatively easily through them via user-generated-content interactions and advertisements," the firm stated.

A survey conducted recently by Barracuda Networks found that malware could slowly be replacing spam emails, with a 55 per cent increase in such software witnessed in the second half of 2010.