CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- StopBadware and
Commtouch® (Nasdaq: CTCH) today published a joint report titled
"Compromised Websites: An Owner's Perspective" that chronicles
webmasters' experiences with hacked websites. The report presents
statistics and opinions on how site owners navigate the process of
learning their sites have been hacked and repairing the damage. The
report's findings are based on a survey Commtouch and StopBadware
designed and offered to website owners and webmasters over the
course of several months.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20110906/478788 )
Data from the poll reveals that malicious actors are often able
to compromise legitimate websites without the site owners'
knowledge: over 90% of respondents didn't notice any strange
activity, despite the fact that their sites were being abused to
send spam, host phishing pages, or distribute malware. Nearly
two-thirds of the webmasters surveyed didn't know how the
compromise had happened.
Other highlights from analysis of the survey's responses
include:
- About half of site owners discovered the hack when they
attempted to visit their own site and received a browser or search
engine warning.
- 26% of site owners had not yet figured out how to resolve the
problem at the time they completed the survey.
- 40% of survey respondents changed their opinion of their web
hosting provider following a compromise.
"Cybercriminals can significantly improve their open and
click-through rates by distributing badware via legitimate
domains. Many site owners are either unaware of the
compromise or struggle to remove the infection, which directly
contributes to the persistence of, and increase in active badware
URLs." said Amir Lev, Commtouch's
chief technology officer. "Commtouch does its part to protect
end-users, enterprises and service providers from compromised sites
with a range of cloud-based email security, Web filtering and
antivirus tools."
"The survey results highlighted several aspects of webmasters'
experience with site compromise that may prove eye-opening for the
security community," said StopBadware Executive Director
Maxim Weinstein. "There's a lack of
clarity for webmasters about who's responsible for site security
and where to turn when a website is compromised. Webmasters and the
wider Internet community therefore benefit from continual efforts
aimed at educating them about their responsibilities and those of
their hosting providers."
The report includes several examples of hacked websites as well
as the spam emails that may trick users into visiting these sites.
In addition to analysis and quotes from site owners, the report
provides tips to help webmasters prevent their sites from being
compromised. More details, including an infographic and a brief
presentation summarizing the report are available at:
http://www.commtouch.com/compromised-websites-report-2012 as well
as http://www.stopbadware.org/home/research.
Commtouch's team and representatives of StopBadware will be
available at the RSA Conference, Booth 253, from February 28 –
March 1 in San Francisco, California to discuss the
survey results in person.
About StopBadware
StopBadware makes the Web safer through the prevention, mitigation,
and remediation of badware websites. It began as a project of the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University before spinning off as a
standalone nonprofit organization in 2010. Corporate partners
include Google, PayPal, Mozilla, Verizon, and Qualys. StopBadware
is based in Cambridge, Mass. For
more information, visit www.stopbadware.org.
About Commtouch
Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH) safeguards the world's leading
security companies and service providers with cloud-based Internet
security services. Real-time threat intelligence from Commtouch's
GlobalView™ Cloud powers its Web filtering, email security and
antivirus solutions, protecting thousands of organizations and
hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Information about
Commtouch can be found at http://www.commtouch.com or by writing to
info@commtouch.com.
- Blog: http://blog.commtouch.com
- Twitter: @Commtouch
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/commtouch
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/commtouch
Commtouch is a registered trademark of Commtouch.
StopBadware Contact
Caitlin Condon
1-617-466-9676
press@stopbadware.org
Commtouch Contact
Amy Kenigsberg
US: 1-913-440-4072
Int'l: +972-9-794-1681
amyk@commtouch.com
SOURCE Commtouch; StopBadware