Kaspersky has said that the proportion of websites secretly harbouring malware climbed to one in 3,000 in 2010.
In its report, the security company has stated an increase in the number of Web-based attacks last year, when more than 580 million incidents were detected.
However instead of targeting websites with illegal content, such as pirate films and music, cyber criminals have turned their attention increasingly to legitimate websites, such as shopping and gaming.
Kaspersky Lab senior security research Ram Herkanaidu told the BBC that the malware programmers attack vulnerable Web servers and many times the website owners are themselves unaware of such attacks.
Herkanaidu said, "They will put a piece of Java code, for example, onto a website and scramble it so it is hard to notice… The Java code runs when you visit the site and redirects the user to malware."
"Previously you could avoid these attacks by not visiting dodgy websites. Today the malware writers are targeting legitimate ones," added Herkanaidu.
Governments are paying more attention to cyber crime than in the past as the cost to the economy is rising.
Last week, the UK government published figures estimating that cyber crime costs the economy £27bn a year.
In last year’s strategic defence and security review (SDSR) in the UK, attacks on IT systems were identified as one of the four most serious threats to national security. Others were terrorism, natural disasters and major accidents.
Prime Minister David Cameron had announced in October that as part of reforms to the UK’s defence capabilities, Britain will spend £650m on a new cyber security programme. Earlier this month, Home Secretary Theresa May had announced a £63m hike in police budgets for fighting cyber crime.
Earlier this week, security company Symantec had stated that three-quarters of organisations across the world have experienced cyber attacks in the past 12 months, costing enterprise businesses an average of $2m per year.
