Inside Google's Anti-Malware Operation

Trailrunner7 writes "A Google malware researcher gave a rare peek inside the company's massive anti-malware and anti-phishing efforts at the SecTor conference here, and the data the company has gathered shows that the attackers who make it their business to infect sites and exploit users are adapting their tactics very quickly and creatively to combat the efforts of Google and others. While Google is still a relative newcomer to the public security scene, the company has deployed a number of services and technologies recently that are designed to identify phishing sites, as well as sites serving malware, and prevent users from finding them. The tools include the Google SafeBrowsing API and a handful of services that are available to help site owners and network administrators find and eliminate malware and the attendant bugs from their sites. Fabrice Jaubert, of Google's anti-malware team, said the company has had good luck identifying and weeding out malicious sites of late. Still, as much as 1.5 percent of all search result pages on Google include links to at least one malware-distribution site, he said."

Comments

"Can I turn it off?"

[Grismar]

This suggests that Google will actively filter out sites that spread malware or are phishing? I'm sure Google will do a fine job at it and odds are I would leave such a feature on, but shouldn't there be an option to turn it off? I would feel way better about a search engine if I knew I could turn all its censoring features off. It's the same with SafeSearch, I have it turned to moderate, but I like the fact that I can opt to turn it off.

It's a group effort.

[happy_place]

I've got a buddy from Bluecoat. They regularly search for these sites, and he says their company regularly reports malware sites to Google. He said there was a time when their software blocked Google because it wouldn't clean up its act. Things have changed.

Re:Details

[surmak]

That's about all the article says. It is amazingly information free. Anything else that is mentioned can be deduced by anybody who uses Google's services and has a bit of knowledge and the logic.

As I was reading it (yes, I know that is a cardinal sin on /.) It felt like there was going to be more in interesting information forthcoming, but there was never anything (other then use use of VMs) that was surprising in any way.

It would be nice if the editors would stop posting content-free stories.

</rant>

Re:Shame

[weicco]

Should Linux developers feel shame also when someone gets his/her machine compromised by running ten years old unpatched stuff? Should door lock makers feel shame if I get my house robbed because I didn't fix broken outdoor lock?

Google Groups Spam

[CondeZer0]

This is all nice and great, but it is quite pathetic that they can't fix all the spam in Google gropus, and isn't like it is rocket science, when exactly the same message with the same spam-link gets posed to hundreds of groups.