The incidence of malicious code on the internet has reached a tipping point, where even trusted sites hold dodgy content, according to an IBM report which reveals a 508 per cent surge in the number of new malicious web links reported in the first half of the year.

“The trends highlighted by the report seem to indicate that the Internet has finally taken on the characteristics of the Wild West where no one is to be trusted,” according to X-Force director Kris Lamb. “There is no such thing as safe browsing today and it is no longer the case that only the red light district sites are responsible for malware. We’ve reached a tipping point where every web site should be viewed as suspicious and every user is at risk. The threat convergence of the web ecosystem is creating a perfect storm of criminal activity.”

Craig Lawson, senor security consultant for IBM in Australia, said that just about everyone was now a target, and told iTWire that the advent of the national broadband network would make Australians even more vulnerable as they were going to be more attractive targets for online criminals once they have access to internet speeds of 100Mbps.

“What can people do? The KISS – keep it simple stupid – principle has never been more applicable,” said Lawson, adding that individuals and enterprises needed to ensure they downloaded the latest versions of internet browsers, and software patches as they become available.

“About 25% of people are still running IE6…old copies of browsers are the easiest way to get compromised. If there is only one thing that people do after reading this report it would be to upgrade to IE7 or IE8,” he said. That is also true for enterprises he warned, as many had clung to older browsers because of the way legacy corporate intranets had been constructed.

“That’s excellent for the bad guys,” warned Lawson.

The full report can be accessed at
http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/iss/xforce/trendreports/