March Madness madness

The March Madness that has become the description of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament in the U.S. begins March 18. In recent years it’s turned into something of a national event with office pools, Americans glued to any source of information about the college games and, unfortunately, a spike in malware targeting corporate networks. Since most of the early NCAA games in the tournament take place during business hours, cyber criminals work hard to infiltrate corporate networks by tricking workers who are surfing the web looking for scores, live updates and streaming tournament coverage.In 2007, research firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas of Chicago estimated that more than 22 million workers followed the tournament by checking scores online during work hours. Although live streaming is available on legitimate sites, some fans will undoubtedly become impatient while searching the web for instant updates and will be directed to a host of malicious websites through poisoned Google search results. These sites will look legitimate and some may even provide updated game results, but the threat is that they will also expose work-based computers to viruses, phishing attacks and other malware embedded in web pages, banner ads and fake video streaming downloads.Sunbelt’s anti-malware researchers offer the following “5 Tips for Responsible Web Surfing” in order to limit the risk of falling prey (continue reading...)