Top Web Sites Are Spreading Malware

The old addage of only going to well known websites has gone out the window! These days it seems it doesn't matter if you're looking at porn or recipes you will still probably wind up with some sort of malware or virus on your computer.

Seventy percent of the top 100 Web sites either hosted malicious content or contained a link designed to redirect site visitors to a malicious Web site during the second half of 2008, claims Websense's report State of Internet Security, Q3-Q4, 2008.

We have been educating our customers for over a year now and letting them know that their computers were being infected through malicious ADS placed on legitimate websites and now the security industry has finally caught up with us.

Ensuring that you maintain your antivirus software is simply not enough any more. Placing all your faith in antivirus software will leave you infecte with malware and spyware.

During July and August of this year, independent test lab and product analyst firm, NSS Labs conducted real-world tests of anti-virus and endpoint software suites against socially engineered, Web-based malware. And we know that's one of the most pressing, rapidly growing threats. Some counts have Web-based malware pegged as more than 50% of all malware delivered today.

The vendors tests included AVG, ESET, F-Secure, Kaspersky Labs, McAfee, Norman, Norton, Panda, and Trend Micro. The results were not very good. the lab conduced 17 days of 24x7 testing, with 59 separate test runs -- occurring every 8 hours. Each test used the most current version of the anti-malware application.

Trend Micro, only managed to stop 91 % of malware as the download to the test system was underway, as well as an additional 5.5% as it executed. That's a 96.5% success rate. The worst performer, according to NSS Lab's testing, ESET blocked only 65.4% of Web-based malware as it tried to download, and 2.5% as it tried to execute. That's a 67.9% success rate. All of the other vendors tested landed somewhere in between.