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Qualys to scan Web sites for malware

Security firm Qualys launches free service that crawls Web pages and notifies Web site owners when malware is found.

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
Elinor Mills

Qualys is set to launch on Monday a free service for Web site operators that will scan their sites for malware.

As part of the service, QualysGuard Malware Detection crawls the pages of customer sites and looks for invisible iFrames, malicious JavaScript code, and other indications of a stealth threat to visitors and provides automated alerts and reports to Web site owners.

The company has profiled Internet Explorer 6 and Adobe's Acrobat, Reader, and Flash Player to understand exactly what happens under normal conditions so it can quickly detect deviations that occur when malware is present, said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at Qualys.

Profiles and testing on additional apps will be forthcoming, he said. "We think (those apps) are what attackers typically have in their sights right now, but we will not stop there," he said.

Google spinoff Dasient offers a free service that alerts Web sites when they appear on malware blacklists and a paid service that detects and quarantines malware on sites.