Rogue websites grow by 600%

The findings come from a global cyberattack trend report by web security company, Websense

Four out of five e-mails received are spam, quarter of a million spam e-mails are sent out per hour, 85% of legitimate website have malicious attackers tailing them.

The number of malicious websites is growing at an alarming pace of 600%. These are the findings of a global cyberattack trend report by web security company, Websense.

“Each week, organisations faced an average of 1,719 attacks for every 1,000 users,” Websense said in its 2013 threat report.

It also takes only 60 seconds for a web connected malware, a short form of malicious software to download additional executables. Links to malicious software are found on the internet in the form of shortened URLs.  

“Once cybercriminals gain access to a host, they typically hide their own malicious pages deep in the directory tree. This process generates very long and complex web links that might tip off a wary user. Link shortening solves that problem,” the report said, sounding off an alarm against such sites.

Most malicious apps can also be detected by one in ten of them ask permission from the user, to instal other apps. Legitimate apps seek them very rarely.

North America ranked first in growth shown by malicious websites at 720%, while they grew at 531% in Europe, West Asia and Africa.

The United States of America, Russia and Germany were the top three countries hosting malware. The Bahamas made its debut into the list of top five countries hosting phishing sites, with a second place ranking.