Webmasters of infected sites \'usually blind to a problem\'

Many businesses don't know that they have got been hacked until they receive a warning from their protection technology.

According to a survey by Commtouch and StopBadware of 600 webmasters between November 2011 and January 2012, greater than 90 per cent of respondents didn't notice any strange activity after being hacked, even though their sites were being abused to send spam, host phishing pages, or distribute malware.

Also, 63 per cent didn't know the way the compromise had happened, while 20 per cent admitted that a failure to maintain plug-ins and software modern was an element in getting infected.

Of the respondents, 36 per cent who were made privy to a compromise failed to know what their site was misused for; 25 per cent believed that their websites were used to host malware; 18 per cent to redirect to other websites; four per cent to host phishing pages; and another four per cent felt that pages at the website will be vandalised.

Just under half (49 per cent) were notified of being infected by a browser warning, and 18 per cent were informed by a colleague or friend. Forty per cent of survey respondents changed their opinion in their hosting provider following a compromise, while 46 per cent fixed the exploit themselves after detection.

Amir Lev, Commtouch's chief technology officer, said: “Many webmasters are either blind to the compromise or struggle to take away the infection, which directly contributes to the persistence of, and increase in, active badware URLs.”

Maxim Weinstein, executive director of StopBadware, said: “The survey results highlighted several aspects of webmasters' experience with site compromise which could prove eye-opening for the safety community.

“There's a scarcity of clarity for webmasters about who's accountable for site security and where to show when an internet site is compromised. Webmasters and the broader internet community therefore take pleasure in continual efforts geared toward educating them about their responsibilities and people in their hosting providers.”