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By Sue Kelly
When it comes to computer security Google engineers are truly humanists.
According to Google and their engineering team, they have noticed unusual patterns of activity on the main Google search engine. These patterns have given them a way to detect a certain type of malware on a querying users PC or computing device. To help its end users, the company has altered the code for its search engine to place a warning at the top of the search results when it detects the querying computer has been infected.
The malware apparently sends a small amount of traffic through a proxy server. Proxy servers are normally used to mask the IP Address of the client browser. Based upon the activity patterns it has been monitoring, it believes that a few million PCs may be infected, and since launching the feature recently it has warned "hundreds of thousands" of its users to possible infection.
"The malware appears to have gotten onto users' computers from one of roughly a hundred variants of fake antivirus, or 'fake AV' software that has been in circulation for a while," security engineer Damian Menscher said. "We aren't aware of a common name for the malware."
Google seemed to suggest that it was looking for users connected to a certain set of proxies. After all, many Internet users employ proxies for security reasons, and many corporations have their entire network sitting behind a proxy. If Google were to just execute a general check to see if the user is accessing Google through a proxy it would mistakenly lead to false warnings.
Google has made no secret that it detests maleware, after all it can disrupt the end user web search experience and lead to diminished use of it's core search engine. Google’s actions against the malware outbreak comes on the heels of incidents such as its public warning that China-based hackers were targeting the Gmail accounts of prominent U.S. officials and human-rights activists, fooling them into giving up their usernames and passwords.
The cyberwar continues so you may want to an anti-virus program on your desktop so you are not inadvertently helping the enemy.
Cross-posted from myITview.com
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