Porn And Tech Search Teemed With Spyware

According to the news by e Canada Now on June 4, 2007, McAfee, cyber security firm claims that around 4% of search terms have outlined the results of websites that attempt to download malicious code and spyware on user's system.

In 2006, McAfee published an update to The State of Search Engine (SE) Safety. It has been found that the figures in this year have come down by 1% as compared with the last year's result. Though, it has been noticed by McAfee that the users of US make almost 276 million searches monthly which, in turn, lead to violation of online security.

This investigation examined the 5 vital search engines (MSN, Google, Yahoo, Ask, and AOL) and was started in January and completed in April. These search engines were found to be equal to 93% of the total search engine used. Moreover, even these frequently visited sites can land up the user on a risky site.

McAfee examined the initial 50 search-results given by each SE for 2,300 famous keywords. These keywords were chosen from Yahoo and Google Zeitgeist! Buzz from many industry sources and the result was matched with McAfee Site Advisor Internet safety database containing safety ratings of 8.2 million website.

The data for the entire report was conducted in May, 2007 by a spyware researcher and advisor to McAfee Site advisor, Ben Edelman. He marked red ratings to the sites, which offer ad ware, spy ware, exploits, spammy emails, viruses or strong associations with other red-sites. Yellow ratings were given to those sites that ask to be careful before using them.

According to the news by e Canada Now on June 4, 2007, many popular file-sharing programs viz. "Bearshare" (45.9% risky), "Kazaa" (34.9%) and "Limeware" (37.1%) topped the list.

As far as search results of adult keyword are concerns risky sites goes up by 17.5% from December 2006 and, further, risky sites arrive at the number of 9.4% out of the total adult search engines. Comparing this, there has been a tremendous increase of 72.2% in the risky adult sites within sponsored results.

According to the news by Internet Ad Sales on June 4, 2007, Edelman continues by saying that search engines have become a new ground for hackers to attack the users, so the customers should take preventive measures with the help of security agencies in avoiding them.

Related article: Porn Links Overflow Irish Message Boards

» SPAMfighter News - 6/21/2007