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Web porn sites major security risk
Tue, 1st Mar 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

The lure of ‘adult’ content online continues to prove too strong for many people, despite the fact that a lot of these sites host malware.So says a report from security solutions provider BitDefender, which confirms that users attempting to find adult content on their computers compromised their computers’ security on multiple occasions.More than 72% of the 2017 respondents interviewed in the study admitted that they had searched for and accessed adult content sites (78% men and 22% women). The study also uncovered that of the most accessed pornographic materials, 91% were videos that can be downloaded. As expected, adult-content sites and, in general, sex-related topics are very attractive for cybercriminals. When asked if they infected their computers searching for this kind of materials, 63% of respondents admitted that they had had malware-related problems more than one time. The sources of malware were especially links sent via email and free downloadable videos.On the other hand, the net research on the safety of URLs leading to pornographic sites revealed that of the 1000 tested links, 29% were infected with different kinds of malware, especially Trojans and spyware."In the end, the findings of this study should make users consider whether accessing these sites is worth compromising their systems, data and work,” the study’s author said.