A new report from Sectigo, a certificate lifecycle management company, has revealed the dire state of affairs on the internet, with over 4.1 million sites being infected with some form of malware according to the findings of this study. Such a high number is concerning because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making it more likely that an average user could unsuspectingly stumble across a site that is infected with malware that might also infect their own systems.
Regardless of how high the number of websites infected with malware is, as long as they are blacklisted they wouldn’t be much of a threat to the average user. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this report has shown that only about 7% of these sites have been blacklisted, with the remaining 93% being included in SERPs which increases the chances of users suffering from cyber attacks.
The main reason why there are so many different websites with malware is that bot traffic is almost six times as high as that of human traffic, and human traffic has been decreasing in comparison to bot traffic as well. This has allowed malicious actors to automate the process of going through a website’s code and finding its vulnerabilities. Bots don’t need to eat or sleep, and they can instead be programmed for the sole purpose of finding vulnerabilities that can be exploited to inject the website’s code with some form of malware.
Hence, the high quantity of bot traffic has allowed eight attacks at endpoints to occur every single minute. Almost half of small business owners, or 48% to be precise, felt that they weren’t big enough targets to be worried about malware, but in spite of the fact that this is the case around half of them had already had their sites infected. This just goes to show that no one is really safe from malware and so they should take steps to protect themselves.
Read next: This New Windows Security Update Reduces Risks of Vulnerable Drivers
Regardless of how high the number of websites infected with malware is, as long as they are blacklisted they wouldn’t be much of a threat to the average user. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this report has shown that only about 7% of these sites have been blacklisted, with the remaining 93% being included in SERPs which increases the chances of users suffering from cyber attacks.
The main reason why there are so many different websites with malware is that bot traffic is almost six times as high as that of human traffic, and human traffic has been decreasing in comparison to bot traffic as well. This has allowed malicious actors to automate the process of going through a website’s code and finding its vulnerabilities. Bots don’t need to eat or sleep, and they can instead be programmed for the sole purpose of finding vulnerabilities that can be exploited to inject the website’s code with some form of malware.
Hence, the high quantity of bot traffic has allowed eight attacks at endpoints to occur every single minute. Almost half of small business owners, or 48% to be precise, felt that they weren’t big enough targets to be worried about malware, but in spite of the fact that this is the case around half of them had already had their sites infected. This just goes to show that no one is really safe from malware and so they should take steps to protect themselves.
Read next: This New Windows Security Update Reduces Risks of Vulnerable Drivers
