Slashdot Mirror
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.
When I installed Linux it asked me for my credit card number. Two days later I got a call from Wachovia asking me if I had purchased $400 worth of Totino's pizza rolls and Mountain Dew (I hadn't). Let this be a warning to all of you out there in the Internet.
Perhaps a good reason why blogging should be illegal.
Come on, Google bloggers, that's less than Apple's marketshare! Surely we can do better than that!! Let's get to work!!
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?
Meanwhile...
...what?
Cut to Steve Ballmer screaming at some programmers.
Ballmer: Two percent?
Programmer: Sir, we..
Ballmer: Two percent?! I told you twenty!
Programmer: We're trying. It's just...
Ballmer: Just what?
Programmer: There's so much other malware coming out, that it throws our percentages off.
Ballmer: Then hire them!
Programmer: Who? The malware authors?
Ballmer: Do you have a problem with that?
Programmer: I don't think it's ethical.
Ballmer: Tony Stark built this in a cave! With a bunch of scraps!
Programmer:
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Furthermore,
or simply posting links to infected websites in other bloggers' comments
Does that mean that slashdot contains 76% of the world's goatse, simply because trolls post links to other servers hosting it on this site?
Perhaps Microsoft has 18.9% of the worlds child porn because it can be found by using their Windows Live search engine?
Part of it is probably google's good name that is attractive to malware hosts. As google "does no evil", people trust them. How could malware end up on a site hosted by a service that does no evil?
people think:
google = good
malware = evil
malware != google
profit for malware distributors!
"Don't be evil. Just host it."
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
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.
The other 98% comes from here
If you're subscribed to Google Alerts, and they post a malware-hosting blogger site with material you're watching for, it comes straight into your inbox. I've had this happen to me with spam copied from one of my own wikis. They seriously need to clamp down on the ability to redirect people automatically from Blogger.
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
Podcast at 11.
If Blogger is so full of malware or links to malware, why don't all the search results pointing to Blogger get the same warning and lack of link?
PC Pro's crack writers say:
(Emphasis mine.) Journalism at its finest!
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
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!
Thats a poor argument. Take canada vs. usa - the climate is the same, most of the laws are similar... but gun control laws are drastically different, and canada has better social services.
... but canada also has a much MUCH lower incidence of gun-related crime.
do we blame the lack of social services in the states for the gun crime? Or perhaps the availability of the guns?
Microsoft isn't set to invent blogging until 2011, after including it as a LiveCloud application in Windows 7. By 3Q2011 you are all expected to offer some awed respect to the brilliant innovation of user generated content (patent pending). Guidance is the same for all of their products: stay away from version 1, even numbered and prime numbered versions, and every version before the first service pack.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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
I'd like to see what percentage of infections were facilitated through MySpace, but that would require omniscience just as this figure does.