Over 10,000 web pages have been infected with malicious code in what has been described as one of the largest attacks of its kind.

According to IT security firm McAfee, the web pages have been modified to feature code which redirects users to another website containing malware.

The firm says that the affected pages include sites relating to travel, hobbies and even government pages.

Craig Schumgar, threat research for the firm, said: "Often you hear warnings about not going to un-trusted sites.

"That is good advice, but it is not enough. Even sites you know can become compromised. You went to a place before that you trust, but that trust was violated through a vulnerability that was exploited."

Anyone who accessed the hacked pages would face a "cascading" IT security threat, he concluded.

Last week, research by AEP networks found that the increasing number of people working from home presents a growing IT security threat to firms.


According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'.