New Websense Security Labs Research Shows 75 Percent of Malicious Sites are from Legit, Trusted Sources with "Good" Reputation Scores
TORONTO — July 29, 2008 — Websense, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBSN)
Highlights / Key Facts:
§ 60 percent of the top 100 most popular Web sites either hosted malicious content or contained a masked redirect to lure unsuspecting victims from legitimate sites to malicious sites, according to new research released today from Websense Security Labs™. The top 100 most popular Web sites, many of which are social networking, Web 2.0 and search sites, represent the majority of all Web page views and are the most popular target for attackers. With their large user base, good reputations and support for Web 2.0 applications, these sites provide malicious code authors with abundant opportunity.
§ In the first half of 2008 more than 75 percent of the Web sites Websense(R) classified as malicious were actually sites with seemingly "good" reputations that had been compromised by attackers. This represents a 50 percent increase from the second half of 2007.
§ More than 45 percent of the top 100 most popular Web sites support user-generated content.
§ Websense Security Labs found that 29 percent of malicious Web attacks included data-stealing code, demonstrating that attackers are after essential information and data.
§ The convergence of blended Web and email threats continues to increase. Websense Security Labs reports that now more than 76.5 percent of all emails in circulation in the past six months contained links to spam sites and/or malicious Web sites. This represents an 18 percent increase since December 2007.
§ Websense Security Labs uses the patent-pending Websense ThreatSeeker™ Network to discover, classify and monitor global Internet threats and trends. Security researchers use the Internet security intelligence from the system, which includes more than 50 million real-time data collecting systems that parse one billion pieces of content daily, to publish security trends and protect customers.
Tags / Keywords:
Websense Security Labs, Web 2.0, Security, Web, ThreatSeeker Network, Malware, Internet Security, Threat Intelligence, Essential Information Protection, Data protection, AV, IDS, IPS, security research
Links / URLs:
Podcasts:
Security Labs Podcasts:
Websense Email Security Research Manager David Saunders discusses the latest messaging threats and trends from the report:
Quotes:
· "Today attackers are overwhelmingly forgoing creating their own malicious sites and targeting legitimate Web sites that have a built in base of visitors," said Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer, Websense. "There is an element of trust in the Web 2.0 world that the Web sites we frequent every day are safe, but attackers are taking advantage of the "good reputations" of Web sites to launch attacks. Most Web security and URL filtering technology today heavily rely on a Web sites' reputation, but this method is outdated. In terms of security, the URL doesn't matter anymore – it's all about the dynamic content that is served up on the page. To safely use the Internet today, organizations need Web security protection that can analyze the content on the Web page in real-time."
"With legitimate Web sites that our employees may try to go to for business reasons, increasingly getting compromised by criminals, the research on the latest threats and the Web security protection from Websense is critical to our organization," said Tim Lawrence, information technology (IT), security analyst at AutomationDirect. "As a Websense customer I know our employees and our essential information are protected from the latest Internet threats and our employees can use the Web and Web 2.0 sites safely."
Embedded Images:
Image: Websense view of the current "Webscape"
Image: Example of a Web 2.0 mashup; the URL no longer matters, it's about the content on the page
Image: Dan Hubbard, Websense chief technology officer
Contact Information: Sarah Thornton, +1 858 320-9500, sthornton@websense.com
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