Malware infects more than 9,000 pages each day

Government websites and mom-and-pop online hubs aren't immune to malware. According to a recent report, more than 9,000 web pages were infected with malware every day in May.

by Kristina Knight

According to Sophos, 9,500 pages were infected daily in May. That is more than 1,000 more than were infected daily in April. Sophos uncovered more than 304,000 web pages infected by malicious code throughout the month.

Iframe led the way, infecting more websites than any other, and accounting for almost two-thirds of the total infected pages. China websites host more than half of all infected website pages, followed by the US (which hosts 27% of infected sites) and for the first time, Thailand made the list by hosting just over 1% of the infected websites. Many of the Thai sites that were infected were government websites.

Why is this important?

Marketers need to be aware of how their site is running, both within the shopping area and within the information area. If users computers could be infected with spyware, viruses or other malware, they won't return to a website. And the word will get out about where users' computers were infected.

It would be a good idea, then, for marketers to check their websites as often as possible. Either once each week or every two weeks websites should be checked for the different types of malware to ensure that your website won't hurt your customers.