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By Mel Duvall

Anti-virus software vendor Symantec has taken a swipe against of some of the Web's most notorious sites. The company has published a list of the 100 "dirtiest" sites on the Internet, based on the number of threats detected by the Norton Safe Web service as of August.

Symantec says it comes as no surprise that 48 percent of the sites are, well, dirty. That is, they feature adult content. However, others were found to run the gamut of subject matter, including deer hunting, catering, figure skating, legal services and buying electronics.

Malware was the most common threat found on the sites, followed by security risks and browser exploits. By simply visiting one of the sites -- without downloading or clicking on anything in particular -- a visitor could put their computer at risk of infection, and possibly place their personal and financial information in the hands of cybercriminals, Symantec warns.

"This list underscores what our research show -- there has been an exponential growth in the number of online threats that are constantly evolving as cybercriminals look for new ways to target your money, identity or assets," Rowan Trollope, senior vice president of Symantec's consumer business unit said in a statement. Of course, Symantec sells software that helps protect consumers from visiting potentially unsafe sites.

"In 2008, most new infections occurred while people were surfing the Web," he added.

To find the dirtiest sites, Symantec's Norton Safe Web service crawled the Internet and performed an analysis. The service scans sites looking for known signatures that would indicate risks such as phising, malicious downloads, browser exploits and links to unsafe external Web sites.

Here are a few of the "filthy facts" uncovered in the process:

• The average number of threats per site on the dirtiest list is roughly 18,000, compared to 23 threats per site for all sites rated by Norton Safe Web.
• 40 of the top 100 have more than 20,000 threats per site.
• Three-quarters of the top 100 have distributed malware for more than six months.

Symantec provides a sample of the sites here. Of course, it would be a bad idea to visit any of them directly.

Comments (2)

	1. 08-21-2009 10:22
	Interesting report, and given the media attention it's gotten I expect Symantec will make it a yearly feature.    I find it somewhat surprising that 75 of the top 100 have been polluting computers with malware for more than half a year. That's some lasting power. Registered

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	2. 08-24-2009 23:13
	Detection is part of the battle, but without an international organization that is chartered and authorized to hold these sites accountable in a timely manner (along with the resources to do so), we'll likely see many repeat offenders on this list over time. Registered

Fred Kauber

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