Computer scientists at the University of Washington used a Web crawler to sample 20 million Internet addresses and search for spyware. There's still a lot of spyware out there, according to
the findings, but there's some evidence the problem is getting better.
A sample of what they found:
- On average, one in 62 Internet domains performed drive-by download attacks
- Game and celebrity Web sites appeared to pose the greatest risk for piggybacked spyware, while sites that offer pirated software topped the list for drive-by attacks.
- More than one in 20 executable files contained piggybacked spyware
From May to October, the researchers found a 93 percent reduction in drive-by downloads, which sounds like good news, but the problem remains so widespread that unprotected computers can easily fall prey.
The biggest conclusion of the study seems to be that computer users are taking steps to avoid spyware infections by using software and common sense. Now if they would just stop opening those e-mail attachments.
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