Fergie's Tech Blog

Hackers Spreading Spyware From Free Personal Web Sites

Gregg Keizer writes in TechWeb News:

Attackers are using free personal Web hosting sites provided by nationally- and internationally-known ISPs to store their malicious code, and to infect users with worms, viruses, and spyware, a security firm said Monday.

Websense, a San Diego, Calif.-based Web security and content filtering vendor, has detected a big jump in the use of personal hosting sites, said Dan Hubbard, the company's senior director of security and technology research.

"The growth of this trend is alarming," said Hubbard. "July has seen a major boom. In the first two weeks alone we found more instances than in May and June combined."

In the first half of the month, Websense found more than 500 free hosting sites created to spread keyloggers alone, Hubbard added. Since the beginning of the year, it's uncovered more than 2,500 such sites.

posted by Fergie @ 7/25/2005 05:44:00 PM