Popular websites contain malicious code

Almost three-quarters of the top 100 sites on the internet are hosts for either malicious code or redirect browsers to malicious websites, according to new research.  Content security provider Websense says its State of Internet Security report shows a 16% increase in malicious code in popular sites over the last six months and a 46% increase over the whole of 2008.

Chief technology officer Dan Hubbard also says over 90% of unwanted emails in the second half of 2008 contained links to spam and malicious sites. 

“Spammers are increasingly using links to malicious web sites and spam sites in their email campaigns to lure users and evade security systems that lack web intelligence,” Hubbard told itnews.com.au.

“We are also seeing an increase in cyber criminals taking advantage of the growing number of Web 2.0 properties that allow user-generated content.”