[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Religious Sites Carry More Malware Than Porn Sites, Security Firm Reports here

[uservhh0]

I wonder how this compares to non-ideological blogs. Is it actually religious sites or are non-commercial sites on pets, cars, english literature and what have you just as bad? Many of all these are done by people with little technical knowledge, just an individual or an interest group. It strikes me that that's far more likely thing to correlate with malware. Of course comparing the often blamed porn with specifically religious sites does make a more compelling title, albeit perhaps a misleading one

[Tinman1957]

“We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free"

OR

The main enemy of porn sites is religious sites. Hackers are classified as evil people. Good Vs Evil over the internet?
Just a thought.....

[Gnostradamus]

Tinman1957, that's tin man thinking indeed. When you have to go to such lengths to justify something, something that is bad, it goes to show you're probably wrong. Worse your mind's been invaded.

[ronin7752]

No surprise here.

Malware developers who expoit poorly secured websites prefer those who have large memberships of naive, impulsive, and unsophisticated users.

Porn sites have been plagued by malwares since they first appeared. They have had to adopt better security for survival. Now religious sites are easier targets.

[ronin7752]

Quote

Internet security reports from companies that also sell anti-virus solutions should be taken with a pinch of salt, given the potential of conflict of interest,

Thank you, Daniel, for saying what so many PCW journalists fail to point out!

[deepsand]

Elementary; purveyors of malware go where the most naive are.

[deepsand]

Quote

Internet security reports from companies that also sell anti-virus solutions should be taken with a pinch of salt, given the potential of conflict of interest,

Assumes facts not in evidence.

[MichaelMcWilliamsupu1]

Dammit. I can't win. After I binge on the porn...I end up hanging around the religious sites out of guilt.

Just might have to stick to online gambling and You Tube cat videos from now on.

The interwebs are so scary.

[AndrewFromSF]

Tinman1957, on 30 April 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

The main enemy of porn sites is religious sites. Hackers are classified as evil people. Good Vs Evil over the internet?
Just a thought.....

It may be "just a thought" but it's an incredibly poorly reasoned one. Why, exactly, would any porn site owner bother attacking some two-bit religious blog? There's no money to be made doing that, to say nothing of the legal consequences if they're caught. Porn site operators aren't in the business of hacking religious sites; they're in the business of selling pictures and movies of naked people, no more or less.

Just because you don't personally approve of something or someone doesn't mean that they are evil or malicious.

I hardly expect any truly religious person to understand that, though, since religion is all about classifying people as either good or evil, sinners or saved, us or them. This sort of divisiveness is horribly damaging to our civilization but is a vital ingredient for any successful religious sect.

A more likely explanation for the correlation is that many religious-themed websites are run by one person (or a small group) who are grossly inexperienced in web security. They probably also almost all use Wordpress too, which would go a long way towards explaining how they got hacked (especially if they aren't studious about applying updates.) These religious webmasters aren't necessarily stupid, they just aren't good at securing websites.

[RickDobbelmannqbtt]

AndrewFromSF, on 01 May 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Tinman1957, on 30 April 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

The main enemy of porn sites is religious sites. Hackers are classified as evil people. Good Vs Evil over the internet?
Just a thought.....

It may be "just a thought" but it's an incredibly poorly reasoned one. Why, exactly, would any porn site owner bother attacking some two-bit religious blog? There's no money to be made doing that, to say nothing of the legal consequences if they're caught. Porn site operators aren't in the business of hacking religious sites; they're in the business of selling pictures and movies of naked people, no more or less.

Just because you don't personally approve of something or someone doesn't mean that they are evil or malicious.

I hardly expect any truly religious person to understand that, though, since religion is all about classifying people as either good or evil, sinners or saved, us or them. This sort of divisiveness is horribly damaging to our civilization but is a vital ingredient for any successful religious sect.

A more likely explanation for the correlation is that many religious-themed websites are run by one person (or a small group) who are grossly inexperienced in web security. They probably also almost all use Wordpress too, which would go a long way towards explaining how they got hacked (especially if they aren't studious about applying updates.) These religious webmasters aren't necessarily stupid, they just aren't good at securing websites.

I thinkj it is great that we can use an OS like linux visit any site on the world wide web and NEVER EVER have to worry about the problems that plague Windows users and to a lesser extent MAC users.

This post has been edited by RickDobbelmannqbtt: 01 May 2012 - 12:15 PM

[deepsand]

AndrewFromSF, on 01 May 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Why, exactly, would any porn site owner bother attacking some two-bit religious blog?

It is not the case that porn site owners/operators target religious sites, but rather 'bot masters who do so.

The goal of such malware is to turn the user's machine into a zombie, part of a 'bot net.

[deepsand]

RickDobbelmannqbtt, on 01 May 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

AndrewFromSF, on 01 May 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Tinman1957, on 30 April 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

The main enemy of porn sites is religious sites. Hackers are classified as evil people. Good Vs Evil over the internet?
Just a thought.....

It may be "just a thought" but it's an incredibly poorly reasoned one. Why, exactly, would any porn site owner bother attacking some two-bit religious blog? There's no money to be made doing that, to say nothing of the legal consequences if they're caught. Porn site operators aren't in the business of hacking religious sites; they're in the business of selling pictures and movies of naked people, no more or less.

Just because you don't personally approve of something or someone doesn't mean that they are evil or malicious.

I hardly expect any truly religious person to understand that, though, since religion is all about classifying people as either good or evil, sinners or saved, us or them. This sort of divisiveness is horribly damaging to our civilization but is a vital ingredient for any successful religious sect.

A more likely explanation for the correlation is that many religious-themed websites are run by one person (or a small group) who are grossly inexperienced in web security. They probably also almost all use Wordpress too, which would go a long way towards explaining how they got hacked (especially if they aren't studious about applying updates.) These religious webmasters aren't necessarily stupid, they just aren't good at securing websites.

I thinkj it is great that we can use an OS like linux visit any site on the world wide web and NEVER EVER have to worry about the problems that plague Windows users and to a lesser extent MAC users.

No OS, including Linux, is invulnerable. That Linux users have to date been relatively untouched by malware owes to the simple fact that the installed user base is miniscule in size, and thus not worth the effort.

[Steve4ngc]

Strange the author failed to point out that Government/Legal/Military sites, along with Education/Reference sites scored higher in infections than both Adult/Porn and Religious/Ideological sites.

[deepsand]

Steve4ngc, on 02 June 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

Strange the author failed to point out that Government/Legal/Military sites, along with Education/Reference sites scored higher in infections than both Adult/Porn and Religious/Ideological sites.

The subject is, not which types of sites are the more targeted by crackers, but which ones infect more users by way of malicious downloads.

[ReySys]

Good for me to believe in free will. Safe I am. But don't forget to use a good AV program as a matter of precaution.

[ragmaniac]

One possible reason for this may be that the visitors to religious sites are more gullible than those visiting pornographic sites. If that is so, then the malware people understand which is the better target for their cybermanure.

[JoeBloe123]

Steve4ngc, on 02 June 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

Strange the author failed to point out that Government/Legal/Military sites, along with Education/Reference sites scored higher in infections than both Adult/Porn and Religious/Ideological sites.

I suppose the headline did it's job. We read the article and Symantec got some free advertizing.

I don't visit porn or religious sites. However I get a surprising number of security alerts and occasional drive by Malware attacks when visiting Military sites.