Results from an in depth study of the security of free porn websites were released at the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security,which was held at Harvard.
The practices used by free porn websites to drive traffic (their only commodity) “have almost inadvertently created a whole ecosystem that’s easy to abuse for cyber crime on a large scale,” according the leader of the study, Dr. Gilbert Wondracek of the International Secure System Lab.
I know, I know, but listen, we all can’t be academics.
Dr. Wondracek’s researchers studied 270,000 websites on 35,000 domains, almost all of which were free. They say that 3.23% of the sites were simply malware in disguise. They also set up a couple of dummy porn sites to collect data about visitors, and found that 40% were browsing with vulnerable browsers.
From the BBC:
Dr Wondracek recommended that anyone visiting porn sites keep their security software up to date and use the “safe browsing” modes found in many browsing programs.
Remember, that website may look clean, but… you can’t beat the Axis if you get a Vundo?
(via /.)
