Press Releases

AVG Research Study Reveals More Than 40 Percent of World’s Malicious Websites are Hosted in the United States

Germany and China Round out Top Three Countries with Web Servers Serving Malware

AMSTERDAM, March 10, 2010– AVG Technologies, makers of the world’s most popular free anti-virus software, today unveiled the results of a research study which shows that – contrary to popular opinion – most malicious websites are hosted on US servers and not in other countries like China.

The AVG research study is based on the analysis of threats reported during the last 6 months from AVG’s 110 million worldwide users of its LinkScanner web security product. The research indicates an increase in malware serving web sites targeting end users, which typically focus on stealing online banking credentials, credit card information, personal identities and passwords to social sites.

The detection and analysis of exploits was based on AVG’s unique crowd-sourced methods for analyzing web content for malicious or dangerous intent as reported by AVG’s vast network of LinkScanner installations worldwide. AVG’s research shows that malicious code is not just an issue with outlaw servers located in countries with weak laws and lax enforcement. Monitoring active web servers serving exploits around the world indicates that 44 percent of the corrupted servers are hosted in the United States, followed by Germany and China at just 5 percent each. Many of these malware-serving websites are legitimate sites compromised by hackers to serve exploits on their behalf. In total, exploitive servers were found in nearly 4,600 locations throughout the USA.

It is important to note that this research makes no statement about who owns or is directing the efforts of these servers – for those criminals and/or criminal networks could be anywhere in the world – and they are.

"The results of this study shatter the myth that malicious code is primarily hosted in countries where e-crime laws are less developed,” said Karel Obluk, Chief Technology Officer, AVG Technologies. “Our research shows that malicious content is much more likely to show up on web servers in the U.S. than one in Asia or Eastern Europe. This makes perfect sense since the USA is a primary target market for the criminals and has rich and mature Internet infrastructure making the threats both highly accessible and cheap to host. What is most striking is the clear rise in the number of malicious servers in the last six months. Today’s hacking techniques are highly evasive so the average user cannot tell if a website is serving malware or not. A web security product is needed."

Obluk continued, "Even more important to note is that, on average during this six month period, about 50 percent of the domains hosted on these servers were online and hosting threats only one day or less. This transient nature makes them very hard to find and add to traditional reputation-based protection systems in time to be helpful to users."

As a preventive measure, users should look for web security protection when going online. AVG’s LinkScanner, included in all of AVG’s products, is a highly effective product to protect users from today’s malware in real-time. AVG LinkScanner is available for a FREE download at: www.linkscanner.avg.com

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About AVG Technologies

AVG is a global security software maker protecting more than 110 million consumers and small businesses in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet. AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and one of the most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating Web-borne threats from around the world. Its free, downloadable software allows novice users to have basic anti-virus protection and then easily upgrade to greater levels of safety and defense when they are ready. AVG has nearly 6,000 resellers, partners and distributors globally including Amazon.com, CNET, Cisco, Ingram Micro, Play.com, Wal-Mart, and Yahoo!

Source: www.avg.com/press-releases-news

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