Mass web infections spike to 6 million pages

An estimated 5.8 million pages belonging to 640,000 websites were infected with code designed to launch malware attacks on visitors, according to a report released Tuesday. The numbers, compiled over the third quarter by security firm Dasient, represent a significant jump in number of legitimate websites that have been …

[Dr_Spain]

PITA

I've seen this spike through a few servers.

If you run joomla, wordpress, etc... don't forget - being security conscious isn't a bad thing. Get config files out of the root, keep stuff below eye-level. It seems basic but so many forget to do it.

Joomla and Co should really be pushing this sorta change though. Security updates there have been limited in the last few months.

[Steven Knox]

640K?

Must be some kind of DOS attack...

[Chris Curtis]

@Steven

Brilliant! Can't believe I didn't see that one!

[Neal 5]

Good stuff

Thanks for the heads up, If only there was some way to make the owners of the 640000 infected sites clean up. If the security firms can identify them, they shouldn't have any problem notifying them.

Any "decent" site owner would prefer to have a clean site if their livlihood or reputation depended on it than no business.

And to be fair here, we are talking of only a minor proportion of the number of sites available, although the numbers are large, and the potential for infection "may" be exponential, as yet we don't know, a good scare story near to halloween is always appreciated.

Still a good article.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

CoTW

FTW @ Steven, that gets my vote (assuming I get one, which I doubt)

[Whitter]

Flash in the pan

Alternatively, a wake-up to site owners: Don't allow flash (or javascript) adverts!

Allow static images only as:

(a) less folks will block your ads

(b) you've just cut your security risk enormously

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a tool...

... for the small, single handed web master to determine if any of their sites have been spiked? So many one man bands likely haven't got a clue in this regard. I believe the wider community could do with a helping hand here.

[Cantankerous Old Buzzard]

Now we know

@Steven Knox

THIS is what ol' Bill REALLY meant when he said, "640K should be enough for anybody".

[OffBeatMammal]

sounds dirty!

"Gumblar" ... makes you wonder what it does to the server :)