The Internet is a valuable resource where individuals, group and companies will publish and look for information. The sad thing about the internet is the internet-based threats that can put your data and computer at risk are getting more difficult to defend against. Websense found that 51% of the sites they classifed as malicious had been compromised - in other words, they were legitimate sites that had been hacked and configured to deliver malware. Google’s study (PDF) shows that malware binaries are often distributed across a large number of URLs and domains. And it’s known to us that most links in SPAM e-mail are often malicious.
How can you have confidence in browsing the internet after researchers have reported that the number of bad contents is growing and the cost of annual loss by companies has increased? Blocking content is one solution but experts have predicted an increase of infected sites. Sure blocking is not an easy task if hundreds of infected sites are found on the internet! Web-borne threats become more complex and infectious; individuals and companies must face the need to supplement their existing security measures.
To help prevent viewing an infected or bad websites, you need a reputation or rating system that will help you decide before you or your organization will view online contents. Consider installing any of the following web and email security tools:
The above security tools are add-ons for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. Some of them will show the link’s rating icon while you search for information using online search services by Google, Live, and Yahoo or while viewing links in e-mail. Others will not load the site that is known as phished or spread malware or rogue products.
Web browsers has built-in fraud or phishing filters that should help you in avoiding bad websites but it is limited to protect only from phished sites. The database of above browser add-ons are updated often which is important to be able to avoid new sites with bad content. Most of these tools gather their data using more than one source:
- Users and Reviewers – there are many computer users who are involved in the security community. Whenever they discover a bad website, the user will report to URL to the above vendors using the built-in reporting system. Customer’s feedback is quite important and many customers nowadays are active in reporting what they think will put the community at risk.
- Using automated robot that scan thousands of websites for malicious or bad content.
- Database by some organization, company or individuals like aa419.org, hpHOSTS, PhishTank, Google, CastleCops, SpamHaus
Extend your browser’s security by using any of the above-mentioned add-ons. It won’t hurt but will greatly help in making decisions before you will view or click links.