White paper reports on new Web threats and what’s being done to defend businesses.

Data leakage, fraud, identity theft, compromised confidentiality, impaired computing capabilities, financial loss, legal action, damaged reputation. All have the potential to seriously undermine a business. And all can result directly from an inadvertent visit to a malware-infected website.

But it’s not just the sheer volume of web threats that poses a danger. Protecting your business is no longer simply a question of avoiding ‘dodgy’ or unknown websites. Many mainstream sites are also being deliberately infected by cyber-criminals – with spyware, Trojans and other business-compromising malware just waiting for the chance to download itself on visitors’ machines.

This white paper, provided by MessageLabs (now part of Symantec) focuses on the ingenious and expanding array of web threats facing businesses today. It assesses their nature, what they aim to achieve and how computer users fall victim to them. But as well as raising awareness of the dangers, it outlines key steps that businesses can take to defend themselves – and so exploit the web’s potential with complete peace of mind.