Websense Internet Security Report Highlights Threats

Online security company Websense have released their latest 6 monthly research report which shows the security of the internet in the second half of 2009. Websense used their ThreatSeeker network in order to monitor and define global internet threats and trends. The network scans 40 million websites and 10 million emails for malicious code and spam. From this scan Websense discovered that 71% of websites with malicious code were legitimate websites which had been infected and that 85% of all emails were spam.

The new findings from Websense point towards increasingly blended security threats which try to pull computers into a network and steal valuable confidential information such as online banking details or credit card numbers. Hackers many have new technologies to take advantage of including smart phones and Windows 7. As well as this more traditional threats such as malicious content spread through advertising and altered search engine results are still ongoing.

It is suspected that spam and attacks via social networking platforms such as Facebook, Myspace or Twitter will become more prominent as hackers take advantage of their massive popularity. Many people place a lot of trust in these platforms and their fellow users making it the ideal way for attackers to spread their content. Another way in which attackers are spreading their content is by using search engines to get users onto their sites. If a site comes up when the latest ?buzz word? is searched for in Google or Bing it is likely to have a high traffic and therefore is the perfect platform for attackers to target.

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