Google Detects Malware in its Search Data
This is interesting:
As we work to protect our users and their information, we sometimes discover unusual patterns of activity. Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or “malware.” As a result of this discovery, today some people will see a prominent notification at the top of their Google web search results….
There’s a lot that Google sees as a result of it’s unique and prominent position in the Internet. Some of it is going to be stuff they never considered. And while they use a lot of it to make money, it’s good of them to give this one back to the Internet users.
GreenSquirrel • July 20, 2011 7:26 AM
In principle, yes it is good.
It is a touch concerning as to how much of “our” data they are able to analyse but that is a whole different set of discussions.
In this current incident, it is a shame that Google hasnt given more information as to what the infection is and, a bit more worrying, do we want to encourage users to follow a big warning banner saying “Your computer is infected, click here to fix it?”
If I saw that, my first assumption would be to ignore the scareware as it is more likely to be an attempted attack than real so I would ignore Google. If they then educate users to follow the link and “install the software” it will undo a decades worth of security education