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08.25.09 Learning Malware Lessons From Web Hosting In Ireland  By Richard HearneI've been paying a lot more attention to the problem of malware. It seems that this issue may be set to be the largest threat to online business, and given the sheer volume of new attacks I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what Google's Safe Browsing system was reporting for Irish Hosting companies. Safe Browsing Google has been directly protecting users from malware since 2006. Their Safe Browsing API is probably best known to Firefox users, and is used by numerous other applications to protect users from malicious websites. Not Just Sites - Networks Too Many people don't realise that Google's malware detection infrastructure measures infection at network as well as website level. So you can check out how much malware each host's webservers have been found to host over the past 90 days. Here's some data for a number of well-known Irish web hosting companies:  Key: # Tested Number of tested sites # Infected Number of sites serving malicious software % % sites serving malicious software Intermediary Number of sites on network acting as intermediaries for further malware distribution Distribution Number of sites on network actually distributing malware Link Link to Safe Browsing Diagnostic page
Some Notes It's worth noting that most hacked websites do not host malware, but instead inject code that results in visitors downloading malware from other servers. A significant proportion of the increased malware seen in recent months is likely a result of the gumblar hack. I had better mention that all I've done above is show the stats reported by Google - these figures may be inaccurate, and I'm not inferring anything about the security of the above mentioned hosts. I was unable to find stats for a number of other well known Irish hosters. Has your site been hacked? If you're concerned you can use this URL: http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=mysite.com [change mysite.com to your domain without www]. Comments About the Author: Richard Hearne is the founder of Red Cardinal, a dedicated search marketing consultancy. A frequent contributor to Google's Webmaster Group, Richard regularly advises clients on Internet marketing strategy and Search Engine optimisation campaigns. Richard's thoughts and research can be found on his search marketing blog. |
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