Hackers 'increasingly targeting legitimate sites'

Thursday, 24 Jan 2008. Categories: USA

More malware is being served up by sites which have been hijacked than those set up specifically to spread attacks, it has been claimed.

According to new data from Websense, 51 per cent of the sites which it deemed to be malicious over the second half of 2007 were those which had themselves been attacked by hackers and seeded with malicious code.

Dan Hubbard of Websense said that hackers are choosing to hijack legitimate sites more since they remove the need for criminals to come up with ways to attract visitors.

He told computerworld.com: "It's a great vector because they don't need to drive users to the sites in many cases; they also get free hosting, of course, and [it's] hard to trace ownership.

"Additionally, if someone is allowing access based on reputation, then they may go undetected."

The remaining 49 per cent of sites classified by Websense had been set up specifically by hackers for scams.

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Hackers 'increasingly targeting legitimate sites'

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