Over half of UK websites are vulnerable to cybercriminals, according to this year's NTA annual web application security report.

Research was carried out across sectors including finance, government, IT, law, education and retail, according to Computer Weekly.com.

Tests found that 60 per cent of websites are open to encryption and cross-site scripting weaknesses and 78 per cent had at least one small or medium-level risk, reports the technology news provider.

Roy Hills, technical director at NTA Monitor, told reporters that cross-site scripting attacks enable hostile websites to compromise a user's browser.

Mr Hills added: "Weak secure sockets layer encryption vulnerabilities may cause sessions to be compromised. All SSL should have strong encryption of at least 128 bits, which is almost impossible to crack."

The news follows research last week by McAfee that suggested consumers are not sufficiently aware of the risks associated with mobile phones and that mobile security is less comprehensive than in the PC market.


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