In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau of CERN presented a proposal for a “HyperText project” as “way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will.” And so the World Wide Web was born.
But while the World Wide Web was born out of a desire to “link and access information”, it wasn’t born with security in mind. The Web’s lack of inbred security coupled with a rapid influx of inexperienced or unsuspecting users has presented ripe opportunity for criminals.
Following are the four broad categories of Web attacks with which Web surfers must contend. Understanding the basics of how these attacks work is perhaps one of your best defenses against today's Web malware threat.