Prompt's TechBlog

New research claims that 64% of the sites returned by search engines when asked for 'free screensavers' are dangerous. Two researchers studied the top results for 1,394 popular keywords across five leading search engines to assess the risk of spyware, adware and viruses at these sites. The riskiest sites are those that offer software for download - not surprisingly, because the easiest way to spread malware is to pretend it's something else and let people install it on their own computers.

As with most survey stories, there are some funny statistics in play - either in the survey itself or in how it's being reported. Apparently, 4-6% of sites returned across all searches were dangerous. Americans carry out 6 billion searches a month. Therefore, the authors conclude, there are 285 million clicks on dangerous sites a month. The flaw in this logic is that the 6 billion searches aren't all on those top keywords. The long tail of diverse people searching for stuff nobody else cares about probably totals more searches than those who keep searching for Paris Hilton and Chantelle, where all the malware is likely to be targeted.