Star sites host most malware
Celebrities bigger lure than sex, says McAfee.
A report on adware and spyware from McAfee has stated that celebrity sites, rather than those pushing
pornography or other widely distrusted content, are the 'most prolific distributors of adware'. Over 16% of sites
blacklisted by McAfee's SiteAdvisor web filtering software were dedicated to celebrity worship,
compared to around 11% each for sites carrying screensavers and 'adult' sites.
The company has identified 450 separate adware families, and 4,000 variants, a tenfold increase over the levels seen
five years ago. Among other figures included in the report, over 12 million computers worldwide are believed to be
compromised and in use as part of a botnet, and 97% of people in a survey could not spot an unsafe site.
The full report is apparently available somewhere on the McAfee website, here.
13 September 2006
Tags:
virus
del.icio.us 
digg this
