U.S.-based Web sites hosting malware are responsible for the majority of malware distributed on the Internet, according to the Cyveillance "Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report". The security company"s report concluded that Web surfers visiting sites based in the United States are more at risk from malware attacks and online identity theft than visitors to sites based in other countries, with more than 63% of malware distributed to visitors via tainted U.S.-based Web sites. In addition, 25% of malware-hosting sites, where the actual binary malware files are hosted and served up, are based in the United States. China leads the way with 34% of malware-hosting sites, the report found.
"We believe that this is simply a case of following the money. The criminals want access to the computers of U.S. citizens so they can eventually tap into their financial resources. Therefore, they distribute malware on sites visited by U.S consumer," said Todd Bransford, vice president of marketing at Cyveillance, based in Arlington, Va. 50% of malware drop sites, which collect sensitive and personally identifiable information, are hosted in the United States. The report includes data collected and analyzed between April 1 and June 30, 2007, based on information collected from more than 200 million unique domain name servers and 150 million unique Web sites. Some 2 million URLs were found to be distributing malware.