E-Business
Almost Half of World’s Top Websites Risky – Report
Nearly half (46%) of the Internet’s top one million Web sites, as ranked by Alexa, are risky.
This is according to a study released yesterday by US-based cyber security firm Menlo Security, which notes this is largely due to vulnerable software running on Web servers and on underlying ad network domains.
The firm says the results are significant because risky sites have never been easier to exploit, and traditional security products fail to provide adequate protection.
Attackers have their veritable choice of half the Web to exploit, allowing them to launch phishing attacks from legitimate sites, it notes.
Menlo Security considers a site risky if the homepage or associated background sites are running vulnerable software, if the site is ‘known-bad’, or if it has had a security incident in the past 12 months.
Vulnerable software was the leading factor in classifying a site as risky, it points out. Of the one million sites, 355 804 were either running vulnerable software or accessing background domains running vulnerable software; 166 853 fell into known-bad categories; while 31 938 experienced a recent security incident.
Another key finding was that background requests sending content to Web browsers outnumber user requests at a ratio of 25:1.
The culprit sites found in the study include destinations that are widely unknown by name; however, these large ad service networks are found hidden behind the world’s most visited media sites and include sites for 24-hour news, weather sites and major metro newspapers.
“Browsing the Web is a leap into the unknown. We already knew that ad networks present risk to the public and businesses, but the extreme levels reached in 2016, affecting 46% of the most visited Web sites, mean that enterprises must address the problem,” says Kowsik Guruswamy, CTO at Menlo Security.
Greg Maudsley, senior director of product marketing, and Jason Steer, solutions architect, EMEA at Menlo Security, point out that risk is not just associated with the sites that users visit. Each site a user visits generates requests to on average 25 requests to background Web sites, such as social media and advertising.
They explain business and economy Web sites feature highly when the information is sliced all ways for risky issues (third highest for known-bad sites, highest for domains associated with recent threat history, and highest for sites with known vulnerable software), but almost all businesses would not block access to business and economy, leading many businesses into a false sense of security and more cyber incidents to deal with.
The security experts say uncategorised Web sites are the highest type of sites associated with being known-bad, followed by adult and pornography as well as business and economy. Vulnerable software was found to be 16 years old in the one million subset.
Menlo Security notes today, exploit kits are readily available to anyone, as are the instructional videos that provide step-by-step execution instructions.
The expertise requirement has all but vanished. Underscoring this point, the average age of suspected cyber attackers dropped from 24 to 17.
Compounding the issue, it says the vast majority of malware prevention products attempt to prevent attacks by distinguishing between “good” and “bad” elements, and then implement policies intended to allow “good” content and block the “bad”.
In every case, the firm explains, the detection is never perfect, and thus the policy choice involves a level of risk that the wrong decision is being made. Additionally, enterprises regularly allow access to popular Web sites for the sake of productivity. Given the risk associated with nearly half of popular sites, a Web security strategy based on categorisation is effectively useless, says Menlo Security.
It adds although traditional phishing attacks involve the creation of a new imposter, or “spoofed” site, the sheer volume of vulnerable trusted sites makes it very easy for attackers to compromise a legitimate site and send that link as part of a phishing campaign.
With this approach, the firm notes, attackers no longer need to worry that URL filtering will thwart their efforts, and they avoid anomalies in the link address, such as misspellings, special characters, or numbers that might raise suspicions.
Clicking on what is a perfectly legitimate link within such a phishing e-mail can expose a user to a drive-by malware exploit that could deliver ransomware, or mark the beginning of a larger breach.
Risk mitigation
To mitigate the risks, Maudsley and Steer recommend new threat prevention techniques, such as isolation and remote browsing.
They add Web site owners should make sure they are running up-to-date software, patch vulnerable software, and ensure only trusted resource files are loaded from third-party servers. Users should use browser extensions and plugins that stop execution of JavaScript, stop using Flash altogether, and use Adblockers to block ads on sites where possible, they note.
Gartner recommends isolation as part of its adaptive security architecture – this approach does not try to distinguish between good and bad, but assumes all active content is risky.
Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) experts at the 10th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2025 held recently, talked about supply chain attacks and reported that by the end of 2024 a total of 14,000 malicious packages were found in open-source projects, a 48% increase compared to the end of 2023. 42 million versions of open-source packages have been examined by Kaspersky throughout 2024 in search for vulnerabilities.
Open-source is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Popular open-source packages include GoMod, Maven, NuGet, npm, PyPI, and others.
These are tools that power countless applications and help developers easily find, install, and manage pre-built code libraries, making it simpler to build software by reusing code others have written. Attackers take advantage of the popularity of these and other packages.
In March 2025, the Lazarus Group was reported to have deployed several malicious npm packages, which were downloaded multiple times before removal. These packages contained malware to steal credentials, cryptocurrency wallet data, and deploy backdoors, targeting developers’ systems across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The attack leveraged GitHub repositories for added legitimacy, highlighting the group’s sophisticated supply chain tactics. Kaspersky’s GReAT also found other npm packages related to this attack. Malicious npm packages could have been integrated into web development, cryptocurrency platforms, and enterprise software, risking widespread data theft and financial losses.
In 2024, a sophisticated backdoor was discovered in XZ Utils versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, a widely used compression library in Linux distributions. Inserted by a trusted contributor, the malicious code targeted SSH servers, enabling remote command execution and threatening countless systems globally.
Detected before widespread exploitation due to performance anomalies, the incident highlighted the dangers of supply chain attacks. XZ Utils is integral to operating systems, cloud servers, and IoT devices, making its compromise a threat to critical infrastructure and enterprise networks.
In 2024, Kaspersky’s GReAT discovered that attackers uploaded malicious Python packages like chatgpt-python and chatgpt-wrapper to PyPI, mimicking legitimate tools for interacting with ChatGPT APIs.
These packages, designed to steal credentials and deploy backdoors, capitalised on the popularity of AI development to trick developers into downloading them. These packages could have been used in AI development, chatbot integrations, and data analytics platforms, endangering sensitive AI workflows and user data.
“Open-source software is the backbone of many modern solutions, but its openness is being weaponised. The 50% rise in malicious packages by the end of 2024 shows attackers are actively embedding sophisticated backdoors and data stealers in popular packages, which millions rely on.
“Without rigorous vetting and real-time monitoring, a single compromised package can trigger a global breach. Organisations need to secure the supply chain before the next XZ Utils-level attack succeeds,” comments Dmitry Galov, Head of Research Center for Russia and CIS at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
Cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has once again warned that sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target Africa as ransomware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) escalate across the region.
Speaking at the company’s annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the cybersecurity firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team highlighted growing digital threats affecting African nations.
Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa emerged as hotspots, with Kenya recording one of the highest web threat incident rates at 20.1% in first quarter 2025.
“While ransomware is less prevalent in Africa due to lower levels of digitisation and economic constraints, countries like South Africa and Nigeria are seeing a sharp rise in attacks,” said Sergey Lozhkin, head of META and APAC regions at Kaspersky.
Kaspersky noted a 0.01 percentage point increase in African ransomware cases year-on-year, reaching 0.41%, still below global and Middle Eastern averages, but a troubling sign for the continent’s emerging digital infrastructure.
Experts warned that attackers are refining their tactics, shifting focus to unconventional entry points like IoT devices, smart appliances, and misconfigured hardware.
“As these economies expand digitally, sectors such as manufacturing, finance and government are becoming key targets,” said Lozhkin
The cyber-crime landscape is evolving quickly, fuelled by AI tools and dark web access to large language models, which enable less skilled actors to launch convincing phishing and malware campaigns.
Groups like FunkSec, which uses AI-generated code and a low-cost ransom model, are redefining ransomware operations.
“African organisations face the dual challenge of expanding digital footprints and limited cybersecurity awareness. This makes layered defense strategies, including network segmentation, real-time monitoring and regular staff training, essential,” stated Lozhkin
Kaspersky continues to monitor 25 active APT groups in the META region, including SideWinder and MuddyWater, some of which are known to target African institutions.
To bolster defenses, the firm recommends using tools such as its free Anti-Ransomware Tool for Business and the Kaspersky Next suite for threat visibility and response.
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