Do News Aggregation Websites Point to Blacklisted Sites?
News aggregation sites, like Digg.com, Reddit.com, Ycombinator and Yahoo Buzz play an important part in the lives of many web-surfers. It is reported that sites like Digg.com have garnered more visitors than heavyweights like Facebook [1]. I was recently asked: “What is the probability of a site listed on popular news aggregation sites to be blacklisted?” The answer to this question is not a very simple one. We understand that benign websites are often compromised by malicious code, sometimes due to application layer vulnerabilities or server side vulnerabilities or a combination of both. Good websites can even be compromised by simple password disclosure, or worse, a blatant nonchalant attitude towards security. My instinct tells me that any site listed on these well known news aggregation sites, if infected, will be spotted rather quickly by some visitor to the “infected” website. If the webmaster is even half interested in the reputation of their site, they will take prompt action t
