ANTenna Blog -- How-To

Do you worry about serve security? If your Web server acquired an infection that turned the machines of visitors into remotely controlled zombies, would you be embarrassed? If you answered yes to both questions you are, sadly, ahead of the pack.

The latest survey by McAfee shows that a significant number of websites in certain domains carry infections, indicating that the servers behind those sites are either completely unsecured, or are actually run by hackers. Since there really aren't that many hackers in circulation, it seems obvious that there is a colossal unawareness of security out there.

Sites were listed as risky if they exhibited excessive pop-ups, triggered phishing attacks, attempted to perform drive-by downloads, triggered spam, or were affiliated with other sites that were themselves considered risky. Exploit code was found on only 0.07% of all sites, or about the same rate as last year.

The overall Web average was 4.1%. The generic .com sites had a rate of 5.26%, which is bad enough. The .info domain posed the biggest risk among high-level domains, with 11.73%. Safest were the .gov sites, with a rate of only 0.05%. Even that, however, is sad, since those sites are typically government-owned, and previous surveys showed a risk rate of zero.

Among the geographic domains, the worst afflicted were the Hong Kong (.hk) sites, where 19.2% presented risks. Chinese sites (.cn) had a risk rate of 11% and Philippine sites (.ph) were 7.7% risky. In all three locations the rate of computer ownership has probably exceeded the rate of security awareness.

As for what can happen when you let your guard down, consider the case of the tiny New Zealand-run Pacific island territory (1,400 inhabitants) of Tokelau. The risk rate associated with its .tk domain amounted to 10.1% last year, but plunged to 1.43% this year after its domain registrar (located in Holland) stopped offering free unlimited anonymous site registration. (Reportedly, the registrar fees paid to the island make up 10% of that territory's revenues.)

Do your part. Be secure. Stay off the list.

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