59Box - China Hosting Blog

China Host 44.8% of World’s Malware

October 13th, 2007

According to this news on Devshed, servers in China host almost half of the malware in the world.

Hardly a surprise to the veteran Internet users in China. Intentionally or unintentionally, malware lurks in most China sites. As detailed in the above news, malwares represent enormous financial return. This is attractive enough that webmaster intentional host malware or infect unknowing websites with it. Not too long ago even a major China bank’s Internet banking site was reported to contain malware.

One of the reasons is that most hosting companies in China uses Windows server. By itself a properly configured and secured Windows server is not a problem. However due to rapid growth, technical incompetence or sheer negligence, servers are often not secured or maintained.

Chinese web sites have demonstrated that they are easier to hack into…There is a large number of Web sites run by small mom-and-pop organizations that don’t use the most sophisticated security.

Google Security Blog noted this in their Online Security report that almost all malwares distributed out of China are from IIS Windows web server.

Another factor was attributed to software piracy. Pirated copies of Microsoft servers used by hosting companies are not updated with security patches.

With millions of unwary users coming online everyday, huge potential financial gain from malwares and high turnover in hosting providers, this situation in China isn’t going to improve anytime soon.

Bottom line. Browse with Firefox.

Entry Filed under: Hosting in China, China Online