Australian sites on the rise in web malware infections

Angus Kidman
Thursday, 11 December 2008 04:12

Your IT - Home IT

A web page becomes infected with malware every 4.5 seconds, and Australian sites are playing an increasingly prominent role in that problem, according to new figures from security software company Sophos.


"The percentage of attacks in which the web is involved continues to increase, especially with innocent sites being dragged in, " Sophos Asia-Pacific head of technology Paul Ducklin told iTWire in an exclusive interview. "The rate of infection has been creeping up throughout the year."

Around 1.1% of infected sites originate from Australia. While that's low enough to place Australia outside the top 10, it's well out of proportion to our overall internet population.

"Australia, although it retains its traditionally lowish spot in the spam relaying countries, is actually at 13th place in the malware hosting chart," Ducklin said. "That seems to be the wrong sort of punching above your weight. You'd like to think that given the relatively high cost of bandwidth here that there's a business incentive for people to fix this."

"One particular attraction of Australian-hosted web sites is that they are almost certain to be in English, and you can argue that English-language web sites have a broader currency worldwide," Ducklin suggested.

Whatever the reason, the problem is a costly one in both security and bandwidth terms. "We really need to do something about this," Ducklin said. "A significant part of the vehicle for cyber-criminality is being provided for free, and by means of links that are much less suspicious than they used to be."