HostExploit is pleased to present the March 2013 World Hosts Report, in collaboration with Group-IB, CSIS and Cyscon.

Download the English report (PDF) here.

Download the German report (PDF) here.

Download the Russian report (PDF) here.

Abstract

As malware continues to evolve, and cybercriminals continue to learn, one particular fundamental remains constant – almost all malicious threats are physically hosted somewhere. For this reason, it remains as important as ever to examine hosting practices and standards and consider how they can be improved.

One such way is to measure levels of cybercriminal activity on servers around the world, and attempt to quantify the results. Such has been the aim of HostExploit’s World Hosts Report (formerly Top 50 Bad Hosts) since publication began in 2009. The quarterly reports examine all 43,000+ publicly-routed Autonomous Systems in the world, gathering data on infected websites, botnets, spam and other activity, before combining the research with trusted community sources and analyzing the results.

The report makes suitable reading for service providers, security professionals, webmasters and policymakers alike. For the most part, the reader is left to draw their own conclusions, as numbers speak for themselves. However, it should be stressed that most malicious content is not hosted knowingly – often it is as a result of inaction, and sometimes hosts can be the victims.

This quarter we see the return of Dutch hosting provider Ecatel to the #1 rank, having held the position at various times in the past. Ecatel does not top the rankings for any particular category of activity, but rather for a consistently poor showing across the board.