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Google to be Our Web-Based Anti-Virus Protector ?
cyberianpan writes "For some time now, searches have displayed 'this site may harm your computer' when Google has tagged a site as containing malware. Now the search engine giant is is further publicizing the level of infection in a paper titled: The Ghost In The Browser. For good reason, too: the company found that nearly 1 in ten sites (or about 450,000) are loaded with malicious software. Google is now promising to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious - with its powerful crawling abilities & data centers, the company is in an excellent position to do this. 'As well as characterizing the scale of the problem on the net, the Google study analyzed the main methods by which criminals inject malicious code on to innocent web pages. It found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets. Widgets are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a webpage or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded form third party sites. The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave criminals other channels, or vectors, of attack, it found.'"
Hax-fu?
Instead of just flagging sites for users, they should first add the detailed information to the Google Webmaster Tools. If it's third party software that's the problem inform the webmasters (at least those who use Google's tools) so they can take it down. Granted, it's their own fault for using third party software without enough investigation, but let them fix the problem before they're flagged for end users.
Developers: We can use your help.
Maybe, but any reduction in the number of infected PCs is win for the entire net.
A complicated error is indistinguishable from a feature.
I would hope that Google is looking at it more from the perspective of what is generally good for the betterment of the entire internet. Who cares if it directly benefits users of Microsoft product users more than Linux/OSX users? Bottom line, it is potentially one less infection, and one less pwned computer in a bot network. Less infections means less machines that are probing ports on random addresses, or used in brute force attacks, such as DoS attempts.
Don't get too tied up in the means, but rather what the potential end results, good or bad, might be.
It should be noted that the 10% of the web number is somewhat misleading--some comments seem to think it implies that 1 in every 10 pages one visits are likely to contain malware, or the like. Chances are, most of these pages are not worth visiting. This isn't in in every ten pages on yahoo.com or cnn.com, it's probably more like 8 in 10 pages on freekiddiepornplz.com and piratewarezserialzhackz.tv.
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Do Linux or Apple users not mind when a bot-net army takes down a website they are trying to access, or clogs the pipes?
Do Linux or Apple users not mind all the spam to their inbox from hijacked machines?
Do Linux or Apple users not have to worry about some family member being taken in by a phishing scheme, hosted on a hijacked machine?
Do Linux or Apple users not mind tons of hijacked machines probing any SSH or other ports you might have open, looking for vulnerabilities or doing dictionary password attacks?
Less hijacked machines on the internet helps us all. Be you a Windows, Linux, Apple, BSD, or other user. Not caring about hijacked windows boxes because you are leet enough to use Linux is stupid.
Since morality is defined by the desire to limit human suffering, protecting innocent people who don't know better from malware is always going to be for a greater good. People shouldn't have to get their OS reloaded every few months.
Not running your choice of OS doesn't make them bad, and is a startling simplistic world view. There's no "helping Microsoft" here; they are trying to protect all Internet users. Since those people are using Google search, it's really more like trying to serve their customers better. Since all their customers are Internet users; so ask yourself: what is concern #1 amongst Internet users?