Porn Websites Likely to Host Five Times Higher Malware

The International Security Systems Lab has recently conducted a research and found that porn websites have five times higher chances of hosting malicious programs like PC worms, Trojans, malware and viruses in contrast to what was thought earlier.

The security researchers at the ISS Lab studied 270,000 web-pages hosted on 35,000 domains as well as created two porn sites so that they could understand the reason behind the dirty nature of such websites.

One reason they found behind the easy dissemination of malware from adult sites is the perpetrators' utilization of affiliate software. This software allows one website to direct traffic to the next website in order to receive web-links, cash, or just free porn content in the process.

As the software doesn't examine the entity/organization it is dealing with and the websites utilize camouflaged (disguised) links along with other secret modes for diverting people to various web-pages, cyber criminals manage to easily exploit the mechanism for distributing malware.

The researchers in their project particularly paid attention to browser plug-ins of Adobe's PDF and Flash Player applications, and Microsoft's Office Suit.

As per the study (research), 3 plug-ins contained 7 security flaws, and a hacker could purchase toolkits which exploited them and take advantage of a vulnerable user, as reported by Odt on June 14, 2010.

The researchers said that they discovered over 20,000 visitors to porn sites having at least one flawed application running on their computer, and over 5,700 similar visitors, having multiple flawed applications. This would enable an attacker to create one strong botnet of 20,000 PCs at the cost of just US$160, they calculated.

Commenting on these interesting discoveries, Dr. Gilbert Wondracek, Researcher at the International Secure System Lab and leader of the study ended the project with the statement that 3.23% of pornographic websites were booby-trapped with malicious software, as reported by Tech.blorge on June 13, 2010.

The discoveries, as per the researchers, will hardly appear as astonishing to those who surfed on the Web anytime.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wondracek advised people accessing porn websites to maintain up-to-date security software and practice the "secure browsing" methods available on several Web-browsers, as reported by Bbc on June 11, 2010.

Related article: Porn Links Overflow Irish Message Boards

» SPAMfighter News - 6/22/2010