Toxic Weblog Fears Expand to Include All Free Hosting Sites

Posted on July 26, 2005

Websense Security Labs, an Internet security firm, has warned that free blogging and photo hosting websites are being used to spread malicious code onto personal computers. The warning did not name any hosting service in particular but gave a broad warning against all kinds of free hosting services. Websense said this trend has expanded since they first warned of toxic weblogs in April, 2005.

Websense Security Labs says it discovered over 500 incidents of free web hosting sites that were created to spread keyloggers, Trojan horse downloaders and other malware in the first two weeks of July 2005 alone.

Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and technology research for Websense, says in a statement, "The growth of this trend is alarming. July has seen a major boom - in the first two weeks alone we found more instances than in May and June combined. Some of the sites may be created with automated shared hacking software and free online tools, while others are built to appear more legitimate. For example, one of the sites found by the Labs included music that accompanied a greeting-card message which runs while your computer is being infected with spyware."

This is a very disturbing trend. This will likely ending up causing a problem for legitimate free hosting sites. It will make it more difficult for them to earn the trust of potential users.