Sophos: New malicious URLs appear every half-second

by Steve Ragan - Aug 2 2011, 12:30

Leveraging the massive attack surface that the Web presents, criminals created a new malicious URL every half-second, according to the stats from Sophos’ mid-year report. During the first part of 2011, the security firm tracked an average of 19,000 newly minted malicious Web addresses per day.

Sophos says that the volume of new malicious URLs has climbed 60-percent when compared to 2010. Yet, despite the creation of two URLs a second, criminals get the most action out of existing domains.

“…more than 80% of the malicious URLs we found are legitimate websites hacked by cybercriminals. These thieves operate round the world to access the data on legitimate sites and subvert it for their own purposes. They achieve this by exploiting vulnerabilities in the software that power the sites or by stealing access credentials from malware infected machines,” the report explains.

The two of the most common threats discovered on the hijacked URLs are Rogue anti-Virus applications and scripts promoting BlackHat SEO campaigns, which often lead users to Malware infections. When it comes to the top locations where the malicious URLs are hosted, the U.S. takes the top spot, followed by Russia, Germany, France, and China.

The full report is online here.

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