Hackers favor quieter methods to attack websites

While high profile attacks like phishing scams targeting stimulus payments make the headlines, a new report shows they are actually on the decline.

The annual security report from website security specialist SiteLock finds that quiet attack methods, like backdoor files, are more favored among hackers as they become increasingly sophisticated and turn to methods that can go undetected and deliver the biggest payout.

Among the key findings are that websites are experiencing an average of 94 attacks per day per site (up 52 percent from the previous year). Some 12.8 million sites on the internet are currently infected with malware.

Of these infected sites 65 percent had at least one backdoor (50 percent last year), while 48 percent of infected sites had at least one filehacker (47 percent last year).

This compares to a decline in 'noisy' malware, just six percent of infected sites had at least one defacement file (15 percent last year), five percent had at least one SEO spam file (18 percent last year, and one percent had at least one cryptominer (two percent last year).

The report finds that WordPress plugins often present problems. Every five plugins you add to your site doubles the risk of it being compromised and sites with plugins installed are more likely to be compromised than average.

You can find out more about the findings on the SiteLock blog.

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