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Google Blogger "Hosts 2% of World's Malware"
Barence writes "Google's Blogger service is responsible for 2% of the world's malware hosted on the Web, according to a new report from security firm Sophos. The company claims hackers are setting up pages on the free blogging service to host malicious code, or simply posting links to infected websites in other bloggers' comments. 'Blogger accounts for around 2% of malware,' according to Sophos's senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley. 'It's head and shoulders above the rest [of the blogging services].'" Sophos believes that Blogger is favored because, being part of Google, it gets spidered early and often.
You're assuming its just the Malware's eyes they're after. Perhaps a study of the spread of Malware through Google would tell us something about their culture? Their will of course be somewhat disconnected clouds of competing bot swarms. Perhaps studying the shape of these clouds and how they choose to connect might help us combat their effectiveness?
Blogger is popular for spam redirects, because it's possible to turn a Blogger page into a redirect. Typical example: "Looking for a R0lex repl1ca? ... Where? At http://www.mitch83393.blogspot.com/" (Google already got this one as a TOS violation, but they're throwaway blogs generated by programs. There will be a new one in a few minutes.) Spammers do this to get their message through filters that check for spam links.
This is a generic problem with Google's free services. Spammers and scammers now use GMail to get throwaway mail accounts, Blogger for an open redirector, YouTube to host advertising videos, AdWords to advertise scams, and Google Checkout to collect the money. It's full-service evil.
For the last two, Google has a business relationship, but doesn't seem to be validating their customers well enough. The use of Google Checkout for spam and attack tools is especially disturbing. Try, for example, searching for "craiglist posting". Note the ads with Google Checkout links. There, Google is an active participant in collecting the money and is profiting from the transaction.
What? Are you crazy ? Seperate the retards that read from the retards that write? Inconceivable!
h.e
Most of the time the scam mail I get has a yahoo email attached.
There are no innocents among free web service providers.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I'm curious to what the 2% number means when market share and region figures are factored in. I'll bet it doesn't mean much.
Newsflash! 2% of the Internet is where 2% of the hackers are!
The other 98% comes from here
That's an interesting question. How much of the world's malware is hosted on (and by hosted i mean stored in, not just linked from) end-user Windows PC's, how much of it on Windows servers, and how much on Linux computers? Is there any statistics about that?
In order to determine that it is 2% means that they would have to know exactly how much is out there in the first place - how would they know that?
http://projectleader.wordpress.com