Disturbing news from an article posted today:

"According to a new study of the top one million domains, 46 percent are running vulnerable software, are known phishing sites, or have had a security breach in the past twelve months." - InfoWorld

This emphasises why it's so important to take care even when visiting sites which you recognize and trust. There are a lot of content-relationships between sites, especially advertisers, and even a well-known site that should be safe could serve you up malware that has slipped through one of their advertisers.

As always, follow safe internet practices:

• Always run quality antivirus software (even on Macs), and keep it up-to-date. Unfortunately some of the most-popular and well-known antivirus software (particularly those bundled with computers) tend to be very bad at their task.
• Use a safe web browser and keep it updated. Internet Explorer should not be used as it is a known magnet for malware due to its prevalence and track record for security flaws.
• Be very careful and conscious of what links you click on and what you choose on any pop-ups that appear. If in doubt, don't.
• Be wary of unexpected emails that contain links or attachments, even if they appear to be from someone you know.
• Never type in your login credentials (username/password), personal or financial information after following a link in an email. Always explicitly go to the website directly first by typing in the address yourself so that you know you aren't the victim of a phishing attack.
• Be aware that many malicious ads pose as fake download links for software you're trying to obtain, or bogus warnings about your computer being infected. Don't fall for this.
• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. For some infections such as ransomware, there is no real "cure" and we need to wipe your hard drive and resort to backups (you're making backups of your important data, right?).
• At the end of the day, remember that your computer is obediant to what you tell it to do, and since most people are a "local administrator" will absolute final control/say, you can be tricked to infecting yourself even if you're running the best antivirus software. No software solution is 100% bulletproof... your actions day to day play a huge role in keeping your computer and data safe.