Google Says Most Of Web Is Safe

Would you like to know how safe the Web is? Statistically speaking, it’s pretty darn clean. That doesn’t mean all is well, however. Far from it, in fact.

How do I know this? Google told me. Well, actually, Google told everyone.

The search giant spent a few extra clock cycles looking at some of the webpages it has catalogued thus far (4.5 million, for the study), and it seems that the majority have eluded the virtual baddies. 9 out of 10 are void of malicious code, says the BBC. That means that the Internet should have a higher approval rating than that given to Trident gum. Of course, it’s ridiculous to compare the two, but it’s the first juxtaposition that came to mind, so it’s what you’ve been dealt.

The worst tenth of the sites inspected were known to be harboring undesirably packages containing spyware and other villainous items, but the negatives don’t stop there. According to the news service, “A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user’s computer.” So…it’s not 1 in 10, exactly, is it?

A discrepancy in numbers in the area of viruses and spyware isn’t unheard of. It seems rather predicable for the researchers in a study such as this one to offer findings that, instead of being written to encompass all “bad seeds,” inhabit several categories. Let’s be honest. Not all evil is alike. Some things, for the most part, lay dormant, while others simply wreak as much havoc in as short a time as possible. Both species are disruptive, but each to a different degree.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, nasty code is nasty code, and from the figures mentioned above, my guess as to the state of Net is that anywhere between 10-15% of all sites are, in some form or another, compromised. 10-15% is manageable, but it’s definitely not to be ignored. As the Web grows, more whitehatters will have to contend with more blackhatters. If the former can beat back the latter enough to ensure that the evil stays below the 10% mark, the computer security industry will be seen as doing an admirable job. If not, then, well, we keep complaining to them.