Malware mania
Google harbours double the amount of malware than Bing, Twitter and Yahoo! combined.
Google was found to harbour the most malware by security firm Barracuda Networks' Barracuda Labs 2010 Midyear Security Report, which investigated search engine malware, Twitter use and crime rate over a two month period.
The report probed 25,000 trending topics and 5.5m search results across Bing, Google, Twitter and Yahoo! in a bid to identify the types of topics used by malware distributors and the scope of the problem.
The search giant was found to turn up more than twice the amount of malware as Bing, Twitter and Yahoo! combined when searches on popular trending topics were performed. Google presented 69 percent, while Yahoo! unearthed 19 percent, Bing 12 percent and Twitter just 1 percent.
Interestingly, the top ten terms used by malware distributors included the names of an NFL player and three actresses among others.
The report also found the amount of time for a trending topic to appear on a search engine varied enormously. Google was the speediest at 1.2 days on average, while Bing took 4.3 days and Yahoo! 4.8 days.
Barracuda Labs also analysed over 25m Twitter accounts to study suspicious account behaviour indicators.
It found true twitter users are tweeting more often in general and even casual users are becoming more active, while malicious activity has also increased. Amazingly, the report warned less than 29 percent of Twitter users are ‘true' users who personally regularly use the micro-blogging site.
It said half of Twitter users tweet less than once a day, but one in ten tweeple tweet more than five times daily, while conversely almost a third of Twitter accounts have never tweeted.
The report also found the Twitter crime rate for the first half of 2010 was 1.67 percent, these are accounts created that are suspended by Twitter.
