It doesn't look good. That site belongs to an ISP in Russia, see screenshot.

Apple has published a security advisory regarding a piece of malware called Mac Defender which targets MAC users. See: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650

However, since then, this same malware has mutated to produce a version which doesn't require a user password to install. See this article on the subject: Mac Defender mutates past security update

You could try posting your concerns on the MAC support forums to see whether they're aware of anything like this: https://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

Hi... thanks - if that's the right word - for that. As far as I can tell nothing downloaded 'quietly' and I also didn't click to download anything from that site. I have also checked the activity monitor as recommended by Apple without finding nasties. What really concerns me is that the website itself got access to the various components in the tool bar ('places', etc) to generate a background image 'dynamically' - essentially an 'emulation' of my desktop. It looks like apple have just - in the last few hours - released two (!) new security updates which I'm currently downloading so will see what pops up.