Religious blogs pose higher malware threat than porn sites

New York, May 2 (ANI): Blogs and websites featuring religious or ideological content are three times more likely than pornographic sites to be infected by malware, according to Symantic's latest Internet security threat report.

The 2011 study analyzed 8.2 billion URLs for malware - or malicious software - and found less than 2 percent of the problematic URLs were porn sites.

Interestingly, the category with the number one threat risk was blogs and personally hosted websites, the New York Daily News reported.

Of those, religious sites were extra vulnerable, receiving an average of 115 security threats per site versus just 25 threats per site with adult content, reports PC World.

Pornography was number 10 on the list, even behind education, health and medicine.

The report's authors guessed the reason behind the surprising statistic is simple business sense: porn sites make good money from the web, and it's in their best interest to make sure their customers' user experience isn't hindered by malware attacks.

On the other hand, self-published sites could be at an increased risk because hackers basically get more bang for their buck when there's a social element, said Dr. Xiang Fu, associate professor of computer science at Hofstra University.

If a malicious JavaScript is uploaded to a social media account, it could be instantly visible to millions of people.

Last year saw a huge surge in malware attacks overall - up by 80 percent from the previous year, according to the report.

Email spam decreased, but is still a widespread problem, with 75 percent of all mail affected. Mobile phones are also seeing an increased threat as smartphone sales steadily rise. (ANI)