Short-lived Web malware: Fading fad or future trend?

Security software vendor AVG Technologies announced that Web-based malware attacks are now so prevalent that attackers craft them to be "secretive, short-lived and fast-moving." This trend became more obvious this week with the Conflicker virus, which tried to access domains that did not even exist, causing domain registrars to scramble to block registrations of 50,000+ domains. Using a more sophisticated Web delivery mechanism that is short-lived helps to reduce the likelihood of attackers getting caught by antivirus signatures or heuristic checks.

From Tech Target's article on the same topic:

One of the best ways to counter newly created sites containing malware is to use some sort of proxy or Web filter that denies new sites not yet scanned and classified under a certain category (i.e. business, investing, news, social networking, etc.). While this strategy will help prevent new websites from compromising systems, it doesn't do anything for compromised legitimate sites allowed by default. For those sites, the best option is to ensure the enterprise security products in place are configured to combat the entire Web threat landscape, namely via real-time analysis of sites prior to serving them to users.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Make sure you use a proxy and a web filter, make sure your anti-virus is up to date, and use some type of real-time rating system or block unknown categories!