Malicious Websites

Malicious websites as a category are rather self-explanatory. It refers to websites that are, simply speaking, bad. And every user should know that visiting such websites is not a good idea. Unfortunately, users are often unaware when they land on dangerous and possibly malicious websites.

So, what is a malicious website? There are several types of malicious websites, and they can be mainly categorized into phishing and malware pages. Now, how do those two categories differ?

Phishing Websites

Phishing websites are mainly there to steal your personal information – the layout and whatever is presented on the site trick the user into disclosing their data. For example, a random survey page could also be a phishing website. It could also look like a legitimate page that was made to masquerade as some reputable service website. Phishing sites are also good at making use of the latest trends and issues. For instance, if an important voting campaign is launched, the chances are that the amount of fake malicious websites related to the campaign will increase, too. And just like that, phishing pages push users into revealing such personal information as credit card ails, their names, and even addresses.

Depending on who controls a phishing website, the collected information could be used for various purposes. The data could be sold on the dark web, which is the most comment method to process stolen personal information. There are users who think that their data will not be valuable unless they are someone important, but that is not true in the cyberworld. All data is valuable, and everything can be sold. The leaked information could also be used in other phishing scams and even hacking attacks.

Malware Websites

Malware websites, on the other hand, are more straightforward. Those are pages that host malicious files that can be downloaded onto your computer when you visit it. Most of the time, it requires your authorization, so the site also tries to trick you into agreeing to download a specific file. For example, it might try to tell you that you need a plug-in or a code to watch a video or to proceed with the content you were viewing. It might also be challenging to tell that those websites are malicious because they often look legitimate.

A level-up from a malware website is a drive-by download website. It is often that both types of websites overlap, but drive-by download pages are more obnoxious because they seldom require some action on your part before malware gets installed on your system. Sometimes it is enough to just open an email or land on a page to initiate a malicious download. It is also possible for the drive-by download to be silent, so it can happen behind your pack. In such a case, it is vital that your anti-malware program detects all potential threats as soon as possible. For that, you have to make sure that you run regular system scans.

How to Avoid Malicious Websites?

If a website insists that you run some software installation automatically the moment you open it, that is the first red flag that something might be off. Also, a lot of malicious websites try to convince users that their computers are infected with malware, and thus, they must run some anti-malware scanner that is embedded in the site. Needless to say, by running the so-called “scanner,” users actually allow malware to enter their system.

Some of the sites may also tell you that you are a winner of an amazing prize, and you have to claim it ASAP. For that, they ask you to give away your personal information, which definitely sounds fishy.

Since malicious websites pretend to be legitimate pages, they can also have odd URLs. For instance, instead of google.com, a spoofed page address could look something like gooooogler.com, and so on.

While it can be hard to tell whether you have landed on a malicious page or not, the rule of the thumb is to use legitimate links only. Do not visit pages that you do not recognize, and if you receive an email from an unfamiliar party, do not be so hasty as to click the outgoing links. They might lead you to malicious pages, too. If you are not sure whether you have been exposed to malicious websites or not, you can also run a system scan with an anti-malware tool.