7 Reasons Websites Are No Longer Safe

Reference: 7 Reasons Websites Are No Longer Safe

Reason 1: Polluted Ads
Reason 2: SQL Injection attacks
Reason 3: User-provided content
Reason 4: Stolen site credentials
Reason 5: Compromised hosting service
Reason 6: Local malware
Reason 7: Hacker engineered fakes


Many of the sites you visit regularly and think are secure are laden with data-stealing malware. Here are seven reasons why, and advice on how to protect your systems.
by Bill Brenner, Senior Editor, CSO
September 09, 2009

Conventional wisdom is that Web wanderers are safe as long as they avoid sites that serve up pornography, stock tips, games and the like. But according to recently gathered research from Boston-based IT security and control firm Sophos, sites we take for granted are not as secure as they appear.

Among the findings in Sophos' threat report for the first six months of this year, 23,500 new infected Web pages -- one every 3.6 seconds -- were detected each day during that period. That's four times worse than the same period last year, said Richard Wang, who manages the Boston lab. Many such infections were found on legitimate websites.

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