The number of malicious Web sites is on the rise, and with toolkits available to create them it's really no wonder. According to Websense the number of malicious site increased by 100% during the first half of 2006. Of the malicious sites detected by Websense 15% were created using ready-made toolkits, which can be had for anywhere from $30 to $3000. That cost is a drop in the bucket compared to the money raked in by the ilk who establish such sites.

Besides making it easy to establish malicious sites, the toolkits make it possible for marginally knowledgeable people to become criminals. So in other words people who normally wouldn't do such things jump right into the fray, probably without much hesitation.

Another interesting figure revealed by Websense is that of all the malicious sites designed to steal user credentials (including banking info, etc) 40% were hosted on compromised systems!

I'll post some more about this later this week.