New Report On Top Badware Networks And Service Providers

HostExploit or HE a group that voluntarily tracks badware, recently, released a report for Q2-2010, providing the latest 'HE Index' of global 'Internet hosting services' that distribute the maximum badware.

Based on actuarial data analysis, HE compiled input from the total 34,748 public Autonomous Systems (ASes). It prepared the HE Index considering various aspects like network size; botnet hosting potential; and malware, spam, rogue and exploit distribution.

The report reveals that the top malicious Internet hosting player on the Index is AS21740 Demand Media/eNom, which supports and distributes bad traffic via malware, spam, botnets, exploits and contaminated online sites.

Meanwhile, it's significant to know that Demand Media serves low budget Internet sites like LiveStrong.com, Cracked and eHow. But, it's also known for operating the No.2 business of domain name registration worldwide, and sells facilities of Web hosting as well via the eNom brand.

Just as all ISPs do, Demand Media too must tackle online fraudsters who exploit its network. These crooks rent servers or register domains to get their fraudulent websites hosted, with the hosting frequently done via other organizations, which resell the services of Demand Media. The crooks even hack into the systems of legitimate clients with an objective to abuse their servers. The problem had been so acute during 2009 that Demand Media found it really hard to subvert these criminals.

Meanwhile, the report's main discoveries are that in the U.S there are 38% of Internet hosts i.e. 19 from the Top 50, hosting bad traffic; in Russia the figure is 12% or 6 from the Top 50; and in Holland, it is 8% or 4.

Further, most business-oriented Web-hosts, servers and ISPs are found running effective means to curtail bad traffic. Their tolerance for bad traffic support is low. Thus, comparing the 34,748 ASes, the HE Index found 94.2% had a 25.0 tolerance, suggesting minimal abuses, while the concentration of bad hosts was found in 5.8% of the total service providers.

Meanwhile, the ten worst hosts the report suggests are Ecatel-AS (No.2), Volgahost-AS (No.3), Webalta-AS (No.4), BlueHost-AS (No.5), VNPT-VN (No.6), LimeStoneNetworks (No.7), Interiapl (No.8), CyberWeb Networks (No.9) and ThePlanet-AS (No.10).

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 8/17/2010