Leading Provider of Managed Web Security Reports Web Viruses Increase 23 Percent and Spyware Decreases 12 Percent in August
ScanSafe, the global leader in managed Web security, today released its latest Global Threat Report on Web filtering, spyware and viruses. Among the report's findings is data that revealed interesting differences in workplace Web use in the U.S. and U.K. to search for employment, find a home and plan a wedding.
ScanSafe reported that in August, more than one in 50 Web pages requested by employees while at work were house hunting or job search websites, representing a significant drain on productivity. In both the U.S. and the U.K. visits to real estate-related sites outnumbered visits to job search sites in August. However, beyond this similarity significant differences in Web usage emerged. Specifically, ScanSafe found that:
- Workers in the U.K. are six times more likely to use the Web to visit real estate sites to buy or rent a home than their U.S. counterparts. In total, the company processed approximately 72 million Web requests for real estate related sites in August.
- U.S. workers are six times more likely to use the Web to look for a new job than their counterparts in the U.K. The company reported it processed approximately 3.5 million Web requests for job search sites in August.
- U.K. workers are twice as likely to visit wedding-related sites during the work day as U.S. workers.
"Getting married, finding a job and looking for a home are three major life-changing events and it's interesting to see how these impact work habits between the two cultures," said Eldar Tuvey, CEO and co-founder, ScanSafe. He added that the differences in Web usage to find a home, for example, may reflect the recent cooling-off of the U.S. housing market.
"The bigger picture is that businesses need to develop an Internet acceptable use policy and have a Web security solution in place that can effectively enforce it. Uncontrolled, non-work related surfing at the office not only consumes bandwidth and lowers productivity, but exposes corporate networks to Web viruses, spyware and other malware that can compromise proprietary information," Tuvey said.
Approximately 26 percent of ScanSafe's corporate customer base block access to job sites while 20 percent restrict access to property and real estate sites.
Web Viruses Increase 23 Percent in August; Trojan-Clicker.HTML.Agent.a Most Widely Blocked Web Virus
ScanSafe also reported that Web viruses increased 23 percent in August while spyware and adware decreased 12 percent. The company blocked 238 unique viruses during the month, 34 percent of which were new unique viruses--viruses blocked for the first time by ScanSafe. The Trojan-Clicker.HTML.Agent.a accounted for the largest single percentage of Web viruses blocked by ScanSafe (18 percent). Zero-hour threats--attacks that appear before an anti-virus signature is available--accounted for 13 percent of all Web-viruses blocked by ScanSafe in August.
Trojan-Clicker.HTML.Agent.a, first detected in February, redirects infected machines to specified advertisement websites, resulting in unwanted pop-up advertisements and banners displayed on the infected machine and thereby generating high hit counts on those specified websites as part of its advertising agenda. Upon execution, the Trojan displays a blank Web page to hide its actual content and attempts to bypass pop-up blocker applications, such as those from Norton Internet Security and Internet Explorer. It also adds the PayPopUpAds cookie so that it can track users' browsing habits.
"Many Web viruses linger for months and sometimes years, like a nagging cough," Tuvey said. "As a result, businesses need to deploy multi-layered anti-virus protection that can block viruses, both old viruses and zero-hour threats, before they reach the corporate network."
ScanSafe leverages industry-leading signature-based engines as well as Outbreak IntelligenceTM, ScanSafe's own proactive heuristics technology, to provide protection from inbound and outbound Web-based threats. Outbreak Intelligence leverages ScanSafe's position at the Internet-level to proactively identify threats, quickly develop heuristics, and test these against real data to ensure accuracy and effectiveness. ScanSafe's ability to analyze threats proactively ensures that Outbreak Intelligence heuristics are created and updated for immediate protection from both known and zero-hour threats.
The ScanSafe Global Threat Report is based on real-time analysis of more than five billion Web requests and more than 10 million Web threats processed by the company in August and represents the largest analysis of Web security threats based on real-world traffic. To obtain a copy of the latest ScanSafe Global Threat Report, send an email to gtr@scansafe.com.
About ScanSafe
ScanSafe is the global leader in managed Web security, ensuring a safe and productive Internet environment for businesses around the world. The easy-to-use service requires no hardware and delivers real-time, complete protection from the latest Web threats. ScanSafe's solutions keep viruses and spyware off corporate networks and allow businesses to control and secure the use of the Web and instant messaging applications.
Powered by its proactive Outbreak Intelligence heuristic technology, ScanSafe processes more than five billion Web requests and blocks 10 million threats each month for customers including Rothschild, Condé Nast and BMW.
Since pioneering the market for managed corporate Web security, ScanSafe continues to deliver innovative Web security solutions, including the introduction of ScandooTM, the world's first free secure Internet search tool that classifies search results based on the presence of malware and unwanted content.
With offices in London and San Mateo, California, ScanSafe is privately owned and financed by Benchmark Capital. The company received the 2006 Info Security Global Product Excellence Award for Best Managed Security Service, and was named one of Red Herring's Top 100 Technology companies of 2005.
