Blog sites are attractive vehicles for hackers because they offer large volumes of free storage, they do not require any identity authentication to post information, and most blog hosting facilities do not provide antivirus protection for posted files, says the firm.In some cases, the culprits create a blog on a legitimate host site, post viral code or keylogging software to the page, and attract traffic to the toxic blog by sending a link through spam e-mail or instant messaging to a large number of recipients.In other cases, the blog can be used as a storage mechanism for malicious code that can be accessed by a Trojan horse that has already been hidden on the user's computer.For example, says Websense, in March the firm issued an alert detailing a spoofed e-mail message that attempted to redirect users to a malicious blog which would run a Trojan horse designed to steal banking passwords.In this situation, the user received a message spoofed from a popular messaging service, offering a new version of their IM program. Upon clicking the link, the user was redirected to a blog page which was hosting a password-stealing keylogger. When predetermined banking web sites were accessed, the keylogger logged keystrokes and sent them to a third party."These aren't the kind of blog web sites that someone would stumble upon and infect their machine accidentally. The success of these attacks relies upon a certain level of social engineering to persuade the individual to click on the link," said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and technology research for Websense."In addition, the blogs are being utilised as the first step of a multi-layered attack that could also involve a spoofed e-mail, Trojan horse, or a keylogger," he added.