Top 100 websites targeted by hackers

Davey Winder
Wednesday, 21 January 2009 15:23

Your IT - Home IT

Ever wondered if that big name website is hosting malicious content or will redirect you to a site that is? Probably not, but in light of a new report out today perhaps you should.

Think hacker and these days you probably either conjure up an image of the TJ Maxx gang stealing millions of credit card numbers or people defacing Britney's four foot vagina on Twitter.

Somewhere in between the two extremes you will find the average hacking activity, driven by greed and directed by organised cyber-criminals. Unfortunately most hackers do not fall into the dumbass category.

No wonder then, according to newly published research from Websense Security Labs today, the number of websites identified as being malicious in intent has increased by 46 percent year on year from 1st January 2008.

No wonder then that some 39 percent of all malicious Web attacks come complete with a data-stealing code element which demonstrates quite clearly how the hackers are after your personal data.

The real surprise contained in the 'State of Internet Security, Q3-Q4 2008' report, though, is the sheer number of the top 100 websites that are compromised in this way.

Websense claims that no less than 70 percent of the top 100 most popular websites, which represent the majority of all Web page views and include the likes of social networking sites, have either contained masked redirects to malicious sites or hosted malware themselves during the last six months.

This represents a 16 percent increase over the previous six-month period.

Indeed, in general, more than 77 percent of the websites classified as malicious by Websense in the second half of 2008 were those with good reputations that had been compromised by hackers. That's up from 75 percent in the first half of 2008.

Websense Chief Technology Officer Dan Hubbard told iTWire "In the last six months criminals have really stepped up their game in a few notable areas. We’re seeing an increase in cybercriminals taking advantage of the growing number of Web 2.0 properties that allow user generated content. More than ever we’re seeing attackers inject Web sites with links and iFrames to direct users to malicious and compromised sites with the ultimate purpose of stealing data.”