Tech Talk

A list of the Dirtiest Web Sites has been made by Symantec calling it “the worst of the worst” when it comes to malware threats.

According to the CNET report, while the dirtiest websites list contains sites that have adult contents (48%), more than half the sites cover a wide range of other categories as well. From legal services, catering, figure skating, and electronics shopping.

Garry Egan, Symantec’s director of security response said, “the number of web attacks is off the charts because it’s the easiest path into a consumer’s machine.” The dirtiest list contains, on average, 18,000 threats per site, but 40 of the site have in excess of 20,000 threats.

The Web “has become the primary delivery of vehicle for malware,” said Egan.

There are various ways of infection to attack your PC. One method is “drive by downloads,” which can exploit a vulnerability in your browser or operating system by “leveraging little security holes” and injecting code into your machine just by your act of visiting the site.

Another method, which is called social engineering, where a user is trick into installing a malicious application that can masquerade as a plug-in to play media or even a fake security program that claims to help you find and remove malware, but the truth, is it installs malware on your machine.

The dirty sites were identified by Symantec as part of the ongoing analysis it does for its Norton Safe Web product. Safe Web also include a free web site that anyone can use to check if a site is known to have malware.

Symantec’s security products now also come with a plug-ins that works with a browser to look over your shoulder while you’re surfing or searching to warn you before visiting a site known to contain malware.

Sample of Dirtiest Web Sites: