David Lacey's IT Security Blog

The importance of anticipating - or at the very least keeping abreast of - emerging threats is illustrated by a report by Carole Theriault, a senior security consultant with Sophos, highlighting a huge increase in the number of malicious Web sites. She points out that the number has risen from 5,000 a day back in April to nearly 30,000 a day. This indicates an escalation in the threats from malware and a shift in tactics from hackers, with more and more legitimate sites being hacked and embedded with malware.

What does it mean for organisations? Amongst other things, it's increasingly likely that users will get infected with malware when visiting innocent sites. Organisations need to raise their game to mitigate this risk by educating users about the risks and discouraging unnecessary visits to personal sites from work. Like many things in security today, the immediate answer lies primarily with enhancing human factors rather than implementing technology. But we also need to develop better technology solutions to achieve a more reliable response to this continually growing threat.