Google Admits That Google.com Is Partially Dangerous (eweek.com)

darthcamaro writes: For over a decade, Google's Safe Browsing technology has helped to alert users to dangerous sites, where malware and phishing exploits can be found. Apparently, one of those unsafe sites is none other than Google.com itself.

According to eWeek, "Google's automatic spidering of the Web will catch some malicious sites, and by Google's own admission, there are sites in its index that will redirect users to locations that will attempt to install malware on their computers. Google also admits and warns that by way of Google.com (and the sites linked in its index), 'Attackers on this site might try to trick you to download software or steal your information (for example passwords, messages, or credit card information).'"

Comments

Re:Viruses just get easier and easier to get

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a solution?
It seems like browsing the web 'safely' these days involves:

- Constantly making sure my browser is up to date.
- Installing a JavaScript blocker and making sure it's always up to date.
- Installing flash and advertisement blockers and making sure they're always up to date.
- Running my browser from within a virtual machine that is restored to a previous 'safe' snapshot.
- Isolating my VM traffic through a separate anonymizing VPN service.

I'm sure this isn't exhaustive and there are other things one should be doing (please tell us!).

I have been told that it is now possible to break out of many Virtual Machines and that even if you use a live, non writable DVD to boot from you may still be able to get infected with some kind of a UEFI root kit. So even if I am doing all of the above and making browsing a pretty unpleasant experience anyway, I'm still vulnerable to infection.

How is any normal person expected to browse the web securely. :/

Re:No shit...

[KGIII]

By we, you mean us on Slashdot, right? Well, I'd like to say that "we" never did any such thing because "we" are not retarded. However... There are a few people who do post here who may very well have thought that at some point in the past or think that today.

That is not a slight against you personally. I haven't a clue who you are, you're just "some AC" who may or may not be retarded. I'll give you, personally, the benefit of doubt but that's increasingly difficult with ACs and even some fairly frequent poster.

If you look at my UID number then you'll see that I've been here for a minute. I used to give ACs the benefit of doubt and I usually try to do so still but it has reached the point where I'll oftentimes just delete the reply notification if it is from an AC. I don't know if ACs have collectively gotten worse or if I've just become less patient. There are also some really stupid people who have accounts. I can mentally filter them out more easily as I notice names when I read the threads.

So, as much as I'd like to say that we're not stupid enough to think that sort of thing here on Slashdot, we're not that bright. When I joined Slashdot, I actually joined and kept my mouth shut for a long time - this was way back with my first account that I've long since forgotten the name of. I registered but didn't say much for a very long time because I was too busy enjoying reading the smart people's posts.

I'd like to say that we were better then but that's not actually true. I was just dumber then. See, I've gone back and read a lot of those old threads and we've always had stupid people.

I don't really know where I'm going (and I didn't when I started) with this post but I'm basically trying to say that I'd be a liar if I said I didn't think someone here was stupid enough to believe it. Sure, they're not going to acknowledge it now that they've seen this but there's surely at least one person (perhaps they're just unfamiliar with it and not stupid) who believes that Google actually makes a true good-faith effort to clean their links of malware, copyrighted material, and other undesirable information. Someone here believes that Google has people, or software - but probably believes it's people who double check the software results, that actually check for malware.

How many times have you come across Google-cloaking, or whatever they're calling it now? When you see a search engine result, click the page, and the page doesn't actually say anything even remotely like what the search engine result says? Yeah, Google also claims they remove them from their search engine - or claimed that they were going to do so. I seem to recall they said they *still* do so, don't quote me on it. But, see Forbes... If you check a Forbes link at Google, you'll see they cache something different than they display to the Google web crawler/bot. Hell, one of the popular help forums, before the advent of StackExchange, used to get prominent rankings but displayed different content to Google than it displayed to the users. Yet, they stayed high in the ranking for years.

No, no... I don't trust Google to do anything more than they absolutely have to. No, I don't trust Google to have my interest at heart. I don't trust Google to protect me. I don't trust their "don't be evil" slogan and I seem to recall they've actually gone so far as to remove that.

But someone, even someone here, certainly believes that they do all those things and more. It could be stupidity or they could just not yet know better because nobody has told them and they've not come across it. If there's something so stupid that nobody could possibly believe it, in your opinion, there's almost certainly at least one person on Slashdot who not only believes it but will argue about it. No stupidity is too great or too small for a Slashdotter to not believe it.

It's at this time that I'll be humble and point out that I am actually a Slashdotter too. Chances are good that there's something stupid that I'm completely certain about.