One website hacked and infected every 5 seconds

EVERY five seconds, a website falls prey to hackers and gets infected with malicious software. This puts visiting surfers at risk of having their computer systems infected.

That startling figure is from a recently published report by IT security and control firm Sophos. The half-yearly report, which was released last Thursday, documents the latest trends and figures on Internet security and cyber-crime within the first six months of this year.

According to Sophos, an average of 16,173 malicious webpages are discovered each day, and a whopping "90 per cent of these webpages are legitimate sites which have been hacked". Surprisingly, these sites are prominent and esteemed ones. The website of Cambridge University Press was hacked in April, and the website belonging to the Association of Tennis Professionals a month later. According to the report, even government agencies are not spared.