Prior to 2001, web sites were relatively static, designed to push information to users in a manner that was not interactive. But proving that adversity can be the path to enlightenment, following the dot-com crash in late 2001 a new, stronger Web emerged. And unlike its predecessor, the new Web lived up to its name – sites became sticky hubs of interactive content, constantly changing and morphing based on the wants and needs of its visitors. Today, the technology that enables Web 2.0 is merely the vehicle, the transport mechanism from point A to point B. It is the user – those members of the particular web community – who ultimately drives the destination.

Unfortunately, malicious software (malware) has also evolved. And just as technology has been replaced by users as the driving force behind web sites, the computer is no longer the ultimate target of the malware – it is the user that is the target. Today, malware is almost single-purposed: to gain access to the user’s private, financial, and confidential information. To gain that access, malware authors exploit the very thing that makes Web 2.0 so successful – the user’s trust.

Modern Web sites bear little resemblance to their predecessors. Today’s websites feature dynamically changing content delivered through a steady stream of user contributions, RSS feeds and third-party advertising. Commerce is increasingly the goal, with a large portion of active sites engaged in affiliate relationships, direct sales, or some other form of monetary gain.

Not only is the face of the web changing, the number of web sites is sharply increasing. In mid-2005 when the term Web 2.0 was first coined, there were approximately 66.4 million sites according to Netcraft Web Server Survey data. As of April 2008, that number had increased 250% to 165.7 million. Also in 2005, Antonio Gulli of the Università di Pisa and Alessio Signorini of the University of Iowa performed a study based on search engine indexing which discovered an estimated 11.5 billion. In 2008, the estimated number of web pages is nearly 30 billion. This figure excludes archived data by the Internet Archive Way- back Machine; in 2008 the IAWM had grown to 86 billion archived pages.

Blogging and social networking comprise the largest segment of growth, a phenomenon also driven by widespread adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. The combined impact of all these factors leads to a situation in which:
• The number of Web sites is increasing;
• The amount of third-party content on those sites is increasing;
• The reliance on active scripting is increasing;
• Social interaction and user-supplied content is increasing; and
• The number of inexperienced Web developers is increasing

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