CYBERSPACE — The adult entertainment industry has a bad reputation for just about everything, most of it undeserved. Perhaps nowhere else is the injustice more obvious than online, an area that the mainstream delights in accusing of all manner of misdeeds, including the housing of spyware and malware. A recent study indicates that this may likely be yet another area where porn is simply being handed a bum rap.According to McAfee’s SiteAdvisor, hardly a source that can be accused of a pro-pornography bias, visitors to music and tech related sites are more likely to stumble across a security risk than they are checking out their favorite sex site.

“The State of Search Engine Safety” report indicated that browsing adult websites were likely to increase one’s chance of hostile computer attack by a mere 9-percent, compared to the 19-percent chance that a visit to a digital music site might be carrying an unplanned payload.

McAfee senior product manager Mark Maxwell believes that adult sites simply don’t have any motivation to infect visitors given their desire and ability to make a profit from them. With the electronics market lagging, however, Web ethics are following suit, with an increasing number of surfers seeking innocent items like background wallpaper and screen savers unintentionally increasing their risk of adware, spyware, and ultimately, spam.

Of special cause for concern were searches conducted within file sharing networks, such as LimeWire, BearShare, and Kazaa, with BearShare’s inventory nearly half packed with troublesome code.

Of the search engines, Yahoo received the cleanest bill of health, but a surprising 9-percent of paid listings packing an unpleasant punch, compared to a mere 2.7-percent of free listings. McAfee had praise for Google, applauding its improved safety, while pointing out that Yahoo, even if on top, had still let itself slide.