Porn Site Search Engine danger Malware

In a study conducted by internet security firm Blue Coat System, malware purveyors prefer the easier pickings of search engines over porn sites as launching grounds for their malware deployment by a wide margin.

Ilustration( Malware)

Almost 40 percent of malware hijackings start at search engines, especially within image results strewn with malware mines, what Blue Coat calls "Search Engine Poisoning."

Avoiding porn sites won't keep you safe from malware, as infections are most likely to begin with image search results, according to one Web security company.

One of the most surprising findings was how porn really doesn't hold as prominent a place in the malware world as it used to, like back in the days when pornadoes (porn pop-up windows) could send you into a cold-sweat tailspin, especially if you were at work and too embarrassed to tell the IT guy you just "stumbled" upon all kinds of XXX, y and z.

Larsen passed on these tips to us:

• SEP attacks tend to lead to Fake AV (Anti-Virus) scanners, so if your browser window ever tells you that you're infected, it's a fake.
• Similarly, if your browser is telling you that you need to update Flash or need a new video codec, it's probably fake.
• As your computer is booting into Windows, before you've loaded the browser, windows popping up telling you that you need to update something are very likely to be legit.
• Stay patched on the "big 5" infection vectors: OS, Browser, Flash, PDF, Java (most exploit kits are not using unpatched zero-day vulnerabilities to attack; they rely on the principle that some percent of their visitors will not be fully patched).
• Don't search for Porn or Cracked/Pirated software & movies. A high percentage of these are malware lures.
• Run a good AV.
• Run a good Web-malware filter (like K9).

If your computer does ingest malware, Larsen advises: "Once you're infected, you're in the classic 'desktop antivirus' world — those are the companies that understand how to disinfect computers. I recommend running a periodic system scan from a different AV vendor than your main AV, to see if it can pick up something the main one missed. (Not a good idea to run multiple AVs on one system though.)"