AVG Technologies, a leading developer of Internet security software, has released statistics that paint a scary picture of the way web-borne threats are developing. Unlike viruses, which make a point of being obvious and staying around for as long as they can, the primary characteristics of web infections today are stealth and transience – meaning they are secretive, short-lived, and fast-moving.
Today's online threats frequently appear briefly on an otherwise legitimate site, moving on to other sites before they can be identified and blocked. In other instances, the criminal element behind these threats simply sets up hundreds of seemingly-legitimate web sites with embedded infections, promotes them for a day or two, and then shuts them down, never to be seen again. The rate of appearance of these 'here today, gone tomorrow sites' is increasing - in just the past three months, AVG researchers have seen the average number of unique new infective sites appearing growing from 100,000-200,000 a day to 200,000-300,000 a day, a pattern that looks set to continue.
One example of a transient threat is malicious advertising – known as 'malverts'. Online criminals simply create and submit a 'malvert' to an advertising network, which then unwittingly distributes the malicious advert to hundreds of sites. Computer users clicking on these ads, or even simply exposed to them accidentally, can become infected with data-stealing spyware.
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