| Real
Casinos> 2007
- Real Casinos News Archive>
Where Does Most Malicious
Code Originate?
No, it's not Russia or even China -
it's the good ol' USA and Britain!
Information Week has published an intriguing new report from the
Finjan cyber security company warning users that many online threats
may not be coming from the seedy underbelly of the Internet but
rather from adveretising on seemingly harmless and well-known sites.
And contrary to conventional wisdom, Russia and China are not the
main sources.
Finjan analysed more than 10 million URLs for its quarterly Web
Security Trends Report and found that most malicious code - worms,
Trojans, and viruses - doesn't come from Russia, China, or any other
country that is considered to have substandard cybercrime laws.
Most malware comes straight out of the United States or the United
Kingdom, according to Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer
of Finjan.
He also pointed out in an interview with InformationWeek that malicious
code isn't just being embedded in porn or other low-class sites.
Much of it can be found hiding in advertisements on legitimate web
venues.
"Malicious code is everywhere," said Ben-Itzhak. "Even
if you avoid sites where you know you should not go, you can still
get infected. It really can come from anywhere."
As commercial interests continue to drive e-crime, malicious code
is more likely to be hosted on local servers in the United States
and the United Kingdom, the report said. That means that relying
solely on filters that scan for where the code came from is no longer
fully effective, Ben-Itzhak said.
"Don't just inspect something coming from a porn site or from
Russia," he said. "You've got to inspect everything. If
code is going to delete something on my machine, block it, and not
just when it's from Russia."
Ben-Itzhak also warned users about clicking on online advertisements
- even on legitimate sites. Advertising actually is the leading
category for URLs containing malicious code, accounting for 80 percent
of all instances. Many Web masters aren't aware of all the ads popping
up on their sites, he added, explaining that many aren't embedding
specific static ads on their sites but buy into ad services that
push ads onto the site.
"That's a main problem," said Ben-Itzhak. "You don't
have to be visiting blacklisted or suspicious sites to get into
trouble."
__________________
"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how
close they were to success when they gave up"
|
