According to new research by NordVPN, a leading cybersecurity company, adult content, free video hosting sites, and sites that impersonate well-known and reputable brands have the most security and privacy threats, such as malware, intrusive ads, and trackers.

In May alone, NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro feature blocked more than 5B intrusive ads, almost 40B trackers, and 60M malware infection attempts. With more than 50M malware-related incidents Americans are among the most affected among all Threat Protection Pro users globally. A thorough analysis of these suspended incidents revealed vital cybersecurity and privacy threats that users should be aware of and protect themselves.

“Every day, we face cyber threats without even noticing them. Even if we do not see malware or trackers with the naked eye or can handle the irritation caused by intrusive ads, it does not save us from severe privacy and cybersecurity issues. We should improve our knowledge and use trusted technology tools to avoid these threats. Most anti-malware features integrated into popular VPNs are usually limited to simple DNS filtering. NordVPN’s digital protection tool is now upgraded to Threat Protection Pro and helps users avoid hacking, tracking, phishing, scams, malware, and annoying ads and cookies,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN.

Malware hides in adult sites and deceptively misspelled Office365 links

Malware is malicious software: viruses, trojans, ransomware, and spyware designed to harm a user’s devices. It can steal sensitive data, encrypt important files, or even take over the devices, putting the criminal in complete control. The most common way users can get their devices infected with malware is by visiting malicious sites.

NordVPN research shows that from January 1 to May 31, Threat Protection Pro blocked more than 24M malicious links in adult content sites (or 8% from all blocked sites), as well as 16M links in uncategorized (5%), and 13M in web services (4%) sites.

Moreover, cybercriminals more often use deceptive misspellings of popular brands to trick victims into clicking phishing links and downloading infected files. As much as 99% of all phishing attacks use just 300 brands for deception. The most popular brands that users impersonated for spreading malware are Office365 (86K impersonated URLs discovered), Gazprom (60K), AT&T (28K), Facebook (19K), and Bet365 (15K)*.

“The brands themselves are not at fault — fakes like these also hurt their reputation, forcing companies to actively hunt them down. But high brand awareness can lull victims into a false sense of security and get them to lower their guard,” Warmenhoven says.

One device in The United States faces 89 malware attacks a month

The risk of getting infected with malware also varies by geographic region. These differences could be attributed to the varying levels of internet connectivity, economic development, and cybersecurity awareness in different countries.

NordVPN research showed that Threat Protection Pro blocked more than 50M attempts to infect American users’ devices during the research period. On average, one device owned by an American user is exposed to 89 malware-related incidents every month. In comparison, Ukraine is the most affected country, with 786 attempts to infect one device with malware per month.

Privacy-invading trackers reign in free video hosting websites

Web trackers are a broad category of privacy-invading tools that collect information on user activity. Trackers typically take the form of special scripts, browser cookies, or tracking pixels. Unfortunately, in the case of a data breach, the stored tracker data could end up falling into the hands of cybercriminals.

With this in mind, users should be highly attentive when using free video hosting (28% of all blocked trackers), online storage (13%), and search engines (13%), which, according to the research, are leaders in tracking user activities. Since January 1, Threat Protection Pro has blocked 39B trackers from free video hosting sites alone, while the online storage category is accountable for 18B trackers.

“Websites often share or sell data collected by trackers to third parties. But those who want to protect their privacy can use several tools to become less trackable. For example, VPN, which will change real IP address and virtual location, tracker blocker or privacy browsers”, says Warmenhoven.

Intrusive ads are not just annoying

Invasive and irrelevant ads popping up unexpectedly, blocking the host page, and opening new pages and windows are also the most common for free video hosting, adult content, and advertisement sites. Since the beginning of the year, Threat Protection Pro has detected and blocked billions of them: more than 2B, 1B, and 807M, respectively.

Moreover, intrusive ads are much more than just an annoying part of internet surfing; they are a matter of privacy and security. They can also infect users’ devices by linking to malicious sites, violate privacy by collecting data from web activity, and impact website loading speed.

How to stay safe from common cyber threats

To protect yourself from common cybersecurity threats like malware, trackers, and intrusive ads, Adrianus Warmenhoven advises to take these precautions:

• Develop good cybersecurity habits. Cybercriminals prey on apathy, confusion, and ignorance, hoping that victims will forego due diligence. For example, most phishing attempts involve distorted names of popular brands.

• Verify, download, scan, install. Malware executables may be disguised as or even hidden in legitimate files. Always verify the website you wish to download from, and always use anti-malware tools like Threat Protection Pro to inspect the files you download. This includes suspicious email attachments.

• Be careful of where you go online. Certain web domain categories are much more likely to host malware that could compromise your device than others. If you visit websites that are likely to contain malware, pay attention to what you type, click, and download.

• Let Threat Protection Pro keep you safe. Threat Protection Pro combines the best aspects of essential cybersecurity tools into one comprehensive security package. It will scan each file you download for malware, stop you from visiting malicious pages used for phishing, scams, and hosting malware, and block annoying ads.

Methodology: The statistics mentioned above were acquired by analyzing aggregated data gathered by NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro service from January 1 to May 31, 2024. NordVPN is not endorsed by, maintained, sponsored by, affiliated, or in any way associated with the owners of the mentioned brands. Brands are indicated solely for the purpose of accurately reporting information related to brands that were most likely to be impersonated for spreading malware*.

ABOUT NORDVPN

NordVPN is the world’s most advanced VPN service provider, used by millions of internet users worldwide. NordVPN provides double VPN encryption and Onion Over VPN and guarantees privacy with zero tracking. One of the key features of the product is Threat Protection, which blocks malicious websites, malware during downloads, trackers, and ads. The latest service by the Nord Security team is Saily — a new global eSIM. NordVPN is very user friendly, offers one of the best prices on the market, and has over 6,200 servers covering 111 countries worldwide. For more information: https://nordvpn.com.