KnownSec Opens Massive Malware Database to Other Security Firms

KnownSec, a Chinese online security organization based in Beijing, revealed its enormous database of malicious software, detected on Chinese websites, for the benefit of other security organizations as well as national CERTS (Computer Emergency Response Teams).

Zhao Wei, CEO of KnownSec, said in an interview in Beijing that the company collected the viruses and related information using a crawler, which scanned about 2 Million Chinese websites daily, as reported by PCWorld on July 2, 2009.

Mr. Wei further stated the database takes care of additional Chinese websites as well as provides latest details regarding their security compared to any other.

Moreover, the database provides a historical background of each website by listing the dates on which malware infection occurred, the series of malicious codes planted on the sites and which antivirus software protect visitors from their attacks. It also stores huge numbers of PC viruses distributed by the sites.

KnownSec states that each day, it discovers over 100 Trojan downloaders that have never been appeared earlier. These downloaders could get a victim's computer to download a maximum of 10 viruses from the Net. The database further contains a catalog of online sites which are presently in a state of compromise. Merely around 50% of the freshly infected sites KnownSec discovers every day are listed on Google's search results as risky.

In a comment, a Google spokeswoman stated that businesses needed to work jointly to identify e-threats so that they can be eliminated from the Internet.

According to KnownSec, security organizations and CERTs could read the company's database. Furthermore, security organizations were welcome to utilize the information for defending consumers of their security software from fresh malware threats.

In the meantime, experts state that approximately one in 4 Chinese websites is now reputed as malicious since they have been compromised and being used for spreading malware.

In separate news, security vendor 'McAfee' has reported that malware is rising vastly from China, as the volume of malware Chinese online surfers reported to McAfee during January-June 2009 was almost 80% the volume during 2008.

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» SPAMfighter News - 7/21/2009