Malware has been spreading at an alarming rate during the first week of August. While the fact that infected spam attachments have dropped from one in 430 for the first six months of the year to one in every 1000 for August is interesting, it isn't as interesting as pointing a finger at those companies which host the most malware infected web pages. The vast majority of pages serving up malicious content are, in fact, hosted on legitimate Web sites. About 80 percent of all Web-based malware is on innocent, albeit compromised, sites. 

The weapon of choice for spreaders of malware continues to be spam that links to infected websites, as we have seen of late with the ever changing tactics of the Storm Trojan Gang. The total number of infected websites has continued to grow; the rate has increased from an average of 6000 new infected sites every day in July to 8000 a day in August. That's probably worth repeating, more than 56,000 newly infected websites during the first week of August alone.

You would think that the powers that be at corporations around the world would have a vested interest in trying to put a stop to the rot, and seeing as the rot starts with those infected websites this is where law enforcement and government agencies alike should be concentrating their concern. This is exactly why the statistics are so interesting, as we can name and shame the countries and companies which have simply not managed, or don't care enough to try and get a grip on this problem.

Synergies Systems Clients can be assured that we already have measures and an attack plan in place for such threats. We pride ourselves in all IT security matters, we constantly monitor and take proactive measures in our maintenance schedule to avoid such threats. As for Non Clients, we feel it's important enough to help provide tools and knowledge to your organization IT staff, and help stem the threat cycle. We have included a Virus/Malware Response Plan below to provide your current IT staff.

In protecting networks against worms, Trojans, and other viruses, every organization must follow an established response plan. This chart provides the basic steps to follow when confronted with a threatening incident. Yet, as every infection situation is different, you can use this chart as a template to customize plans when dealing with specific viruses by adding additional remedial steps and actions. Print out this chart, as well as customized virus response charts, and post them in prominent and convenient locations for your IT staff's use