Innocent web sites are a being targeted by cybercriminals who are subjecting them to aggressive malware attacks. An estimated 10 million plus web pages are infected every year and as many as 80% of infected web sites hosting malicious software are legitimate. According to Dasient, a web security business founded by ex-Google engineers, the threat to legitimate web sites of a malware attack has risen as more people create their own web sites and blogs without proper built-in security protocols. In addition, Dasient points to the complexity of today's web with richer functionality, third party widgets, video and new sources of content (such as user generated content) as a contributor to the increased vulnerability and attack surface of web pages.
Often, Internet users are unaware that they have opened an infected page and downloaded malware. However, web browsers such as Google, Yahoo and Firefox track infected sites and restrict access by 'blacklisting' them. Users are informed by a pop-up message known as the 'red screen of death', warning of the dangers of visiting a blacklisted site. Blacklisting can damage the reputation of a web site and have a serious impact on the turnover of a business. Dasient, which has developed a web-based anti-malware service that prevents blacklisting, has reported that some of its customers have lost thousands of dollars and others have reported a drop in traffic to their site by 95%-98% as a result of being blacklisted.
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