Google has a detailed blog post named Open redirect URLs: Is your site being abused? The post goes through the issues with having “open” redirects on your site. Open redirects can lead to spammers abusing your site and ultimately hurting your rankings in Google or other search engines. The post goes through the various methods […]
News flash folks, Google AdWords is not perfect and can be exploited. There are times when people can go into the AdWords system and trick Google into serving up ads for phishing sites and malware downloads. Yes, this happens and happens often enough. I am not trying to depend Google but they probably automatically approve […]
Recently, Microsoft Live Search added malware warnings to their search results. If a searcher clicks a result that Microsoft has detected contains malware, a popup warns then not to proceed to the site. As Matt noted yesterday, Google and Yahoo! also provide malware warnings to searchers. How can you find out if Microsoft has flagged […]
Mike Blumenthal has been diligently covering how local listings can be hijacked in Google Maps. He’s also been frustrated that Google doesn’t seem to be fixing the local hijacking problem. So, to illustrate the problem, he’s posted how he took over Microsoft’s business listing — turning it into Microsoft Escort Service — and how those […]
Some search industry watchers have called Google the “internet’s traffic cop,” and it’s a role Google seems to be growing more comfortable in, too. Late last week, for example, Google published an explanation of how it handles pages that are found to house malware, and how webmasters can clean up the problem and get back […]
Many in the search industry expect online advertising to take a smaller hit (if any) from the struggling economy than other types of advertising. But that view isn’t shared by all. According to AdAge today, some analysts think online advertising is as vulnerable as other sectors:
Back in March 2007, Google promised to begin anonymizing log data to better protect user privacy. That kicked off a wave of privacy pledges from competing search engines. In addition, by agreeing to limit itself, it inadvertently got the European Union to demand even faster data destruction. Below, a look at Google’s progress toward its […]
Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware from News.com reports Google’s Blogger accounts “for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts.” Sophos, an antivirus vendor, published a report showing the state of malware injections and attacks throughout the web. Specifically, hackers can set up “malicious blogs” on the Blogger service, plus they can […]
A week ago Google announced the release of a safe browsing diagnostic tool. To use the tool, just append a URL to the end of https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=. For example, to test this site, you would enter https://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=https://searchengineland.com/. Google will then return four sets of security information about that page.
Google adwords fuel new URL attack from IDG News reports that the AdWords credit card phishing attempts continue to be a problem. Emails disguised as official Google AdWords emails are being sent to advertisers asking them to update their billing information. When advertisers go through the link and update their billing information, their credit card […]
My site’s been hacked – now what? from the Google Webmaster Central team provides a much needed guide on how to recover from your site being hacked. Sites are sometimes hijacked in an attempt to inject code and links into that site, to try and boost the hacker’s site ranking in Google and other search […]
Google Webmaster Central has announced that they now will have webmaster communication messages waiting for webmasters even if they have not yet verified their site in Google Webmaster Tools. Let me step back a bit and explain why this is incredibly important. In July 2007, Google released Message Center within Webmaster Tools. This gave Google […]
Hackers turn Google into vulnerability scanner from Techworld reports a group of hackers named Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) launched a search tool powered by Google to help see if your sites are vulnerable to a hacking attempt. The tool is named Goolag, and by typing in a domain name it may return site […]
For the readers of Search Engine Land it might come as a surprise that, while most US adults find online shopping “convenient,” they still don’t like sending personal or credit card information over the internet. Based on a consumer telephone survey, among 2,400 adults (9/07), the Pew Internet Project found a range of contradictory attitudes […]
Web Browsing, Search, And Online Ads Grow More Risky, Google Says from InformationWeek reports on a recent Google Study named All Your iFRAMEs Point to Us that shows 1.3% of Google searches returned at least one malicious result. Niels Provos, a security engineer at Google, lead the study that took 10 months of data containing […]
For most people, today is Monday, January 28. However, today has been designated “Data Privacy Day” in North America and in 27 European countries in conjunction with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Google’s privacy counsel, Jane Horvath, says the company is joining in an international privacy conference being held at Duke University in Durham, […]
Google Toolbar Dialog Spoofing Vulnerability by Aviv Raff discloses an exploit with Google’s Toolbar versions four and five. The exploit comes into play when a user adds a button to their Google toolbar. When added, a hacker can spoof the information displayed in the dialog box and influence that user to download malicious files on […]
Search Engine Journal reports that online security firm Aladdin Knowledge Systems identified a potential “flaw, which allows the search engines to deliver malicious pages that have already been removed from the web.” What that means as a practical matter is that hacked pages, which have already been taken down or otherwise cleaned up, may still […]
In the aftermath of the major malware attack that hit search results, the Google Online Security Blog announced the launch of a new form to report malware software showing up in Google results.
Search spam, using techniques that manipulate the search results, feels like it is getting more dangerous every day. Some search spammers go as far as hacking sites to inject link spam into unsuspecting web pages. And some go even further by polluting the search results with nasty malware. Yesterday we covered a story about a […]
Subverted search sites lead to massive malware attack in progress from ComputerWorld reports that Google, along with Yahoo, Live Search have been targeted in a massive attack that puts links leading to malware sites into top search results. Alex Eckelberry, Sunbelt Software’s CEO said “So far we’ve found 27 different domains, each with up to […]
Google boosts corporate e-mail service from the AP reports that Google is adding security and more email storage space to Gmail for their corporate users. Google purchased Postini, a software security for electronic communications company, back in July. They will be utilizing the Postini technology to add security software to Gmail and their other online […]
Nathan Weinberg reports that Google fixed a security issue with the new Google Presentations, which leaked user email addresses to the public. What happened was that when webmasters tried to embed presentations into their web pages, it would then log people into Google Talk via their Google Account. After they logged in, to view the […]
AltaVista is now in the top search results for a Google search on SEO? And what’s with all these Chinese pages suddenly showing up. Folks are noting that Google’s results have suddenly seemed to have gotten funky.
The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced they will be resuming the emailing of penalty notifications to webmasters. Google stopped sending these notifications when they learned that some people were using these notifications as a way to scare, spam and send viruses to webmasters. Soon after, Google launched a message center to notify webmasters who have […]
Google Proxy Hacking: How A Third Party Can Remove Your Site From Google SERPs by Dan Thies gives us a detailed look at the serious dangers of proxy hacking. Dan’s detailed article shows the history on how he discovered the issue. He then goes into why the hacking currently works in Google. Dan is eager […]
CA and Yahoo have teamed up to offer a co-branded version of the Yahoo Toolbar. This Yahoo Toolbar will be bundled in all CA Home/Home Office products. CA Anti-Spyware will continue to power Yahoo’s anti-spyware feature in the toolbar. From the press release:
Ever done a search at Google and get a message saying you need to type some characters to keep searching? Those characters are called a CAPTCHA, a method designed to help someone prove they aren’t an automated program hitting Google. Sometimes Google can mistake a human for programs like these, and the Google Security blog […]
Google announced (and here) the acquisition of Postini, a software security for electronic communications company for $625 million. Google said that this company would become a division of Google Apps. They will help secure Google Apps including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, Calendar and Google’s other applications. “With this transaction, we’re reinforcing our commitment to […]
The State of Search Engine Safety was released by Site Advisor today. In this report, we learned that search results are now safer then they were a year ago. 4% of the search results are link to risky sites, down from 5.0% reported last year. Sponsored results are 2.4 times more likely to have links […]
Googlified reports that Google has acquired GreenBorder Technologies, an online security company, on May 11, 2007. Ionut adds that GreenBorder protects against virus, spyware, and trojan threats by watching the Internet session from the rest of the PC and earlier Internet sessions. If GreenBorder protects an application, the application would be highlighted in green. It […]
‘Month of bugs’ pins bull’s-eye on Google, Yahoo from Computerworld reports Websecurity.com.ua says it will post a security vulnerability about the most popular search engines of the world each day throughout the month of June, in particular cross-site scripting ones.
Virus Writers Taint Google Ad Links from the Washington Post covers a report saying that consumers trying to reach some legitimate sites might be getting infected with malicious software when they click on ads at Google. The software tries to “steal passwords and other sensitive information from infected PCs,” the article says. Google has reportedly […]
The Google Mac Blog was hacked this weekend, at least the second time an official Google blog has been hacked. It was restored fairly quickly. In somewhat related news, Chris Pirillo noticed Google Calendar users storing their private passwords in their public calendars.
Last night the Google AdWords blog announced a paper they published named The Anatomy of Clickbot.A. The paper was rewritten by Neil Daswani, Michael Stoppelman, and the Google Click Quality and Security Teams. Here is the abstract: This paper provides a detailed case study of the architecture of the Clickbot.A botnet that attempted a low-noise […]
The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that they are now stepping up malware notifications to webmasters. They are giving more detailed reports on the malware issues with a specific site and they are also sending email notifications to webmasters about these malware warnings. In the past, Google just posted a message in the Webmaster Central […]
BusinessWeek reports that Google Desktop had a major defect that could have potentially enabled hackers to view personal files on a computer with Google Desktop installed. The hole was plugged February 1st, a few weeks after it was discovered by Watchfire Corp. Google says it has no evidence the vulnerability was exploited.
Google Operating Systems reports that Google has changed the way they handle warning searchers of sites that may contain malware on them. It notes that a search on beautiful free screensaver currently brings up a result from elitesavers.com that has a message from Google reading: “This site may harm your computer.” That message links directly […]
First Graywolf’s blog was hacked, then I just found Stuntdubl has gone down when I was about to send some link love his way. I’ll hold that for tomorrow. They’re not the only ones. The culprit is over here and writes (NOTE: Links no longer work as this WordPress hosted account was promptly suspended for violating the terms of service): My name is XXX. […]
Last Friday, Philipp Lenssen wrote a fascinating post describing how his associate Tony Ruscoe was able to access Philipp’s Google account: “It’s your worst nightmare – someone reads parts of your Google emails, views your docs, modifies your spreadsheets, checks out your reading habits on the Google personalized homepage or Google Reader, and goes through […]