Study: Backdoors Found on 73% of Compromised Websites

The average website is attacked 22 times per day, according to findings released Wednesday by SiteLock, which specializes in security for small- to midsized businesses.

While most SMBs are not commonly targeted by highly sophisticated attacks, "what they do face is more attacks," SiteLock president Neill Feather said in an interview with Dark Reading last month.

SMBs' websites are often used by cybercriminals "as a vector for monetization," he says.

And it isn't just e-commerce sites. For example, blogs with active comment sections may be popular targets for spam, malvertising, and "resource theft," according to the study. Twenty-one percent of the compromised sites - in SiteLock's database of approximately 6 million - contained spam and 6% were being used to send automated attacks. 

Thirty-nine percent of the hacked sites were infected with shell programs, and 73% contained backdoors. 

For a small business, the material impact of these compromises can be dire, says Feather. "They're in business one day, and the next day they're not." 

See more here.