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What are the Internet's most dangerous search words? Bearshare and screensaver.
This practice is a big reason fake antivirus programs have become such a problem. Someone searching for "XP antivirus," for example, is probably looking for a program like Avast or AVG -- but instead, they could very well end up on a malicious site peddling the XP Antivirus malware (or one of a thousand variants).
So what search words are most likely to get you into trouble? Bearshare and screensaver.
I'll admit I'm kind of shocked. Typically it's a search for a hot celebrity or someone's nude photos or private video which causes the most problems, but according to McAffee Bearshare is the worst right now with 46% of results returned pointing to malicious sites. Screensavers is close behind at 42%.
Personally, I wouldn't touch Bearshare (even the real program) with a 100-foot pole and the same goes for free screensaver websites. The customers whose computers I service, however, continue to learn hard lessons in responsible use.
I don't always agree with McAffee, but in this case they're bang-on: avoid these things like the plague, and tell your family and friends to do the same.
[via AfterDawn]
Sushi Cat is one of the cutest Flash games I've ever run across.
You play a blue cat with a major talent for eating and, fortunately
for you, every level is filled with delicious sushi! The controls
are simple: you aim and drop from the top of the screen using the
mouse, trying to hit as much sushi as you can on the way down. Eat
enough sushi, and you can go on to the next level. Your score
depends on how much sushi you eat, and which bucket the cat lands
in when it finally reaches the bottom of the screen. The more
...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
der_tuxman said 2:02PM on 3-24-2010
BearShare? Hmm, I thought it was already dead.
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Ashutosh Mishra said 2:30PM on 3-24-2010
What I don't understand is why the search engines don't filter these sites. I think Yahoo! has some partnership with McAfee to flag dangerous sites, but the other too - Google's SafeSearch and Bing's whatever - are awful. Just search for 'antispyware' and you'll find antispyware.com, which distributes rogueware / scareware, in the no. 2 / 3 position. This absolutely needs fixing.
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rndmnme said 2:45PM on 3-24-2010
Uhhh, are you aware of just how many websites there are, just how easy they are to set up, and just how many search queries there are? Talk about unreasonable expectations.
Google only has indexed around .5% of web sites actually on the internet, and in some cases it can take months before sites actually get put into the index. Google's smart, but at the end of the day its barely a sample of data thats on the internet - and the processing power it takes to do just that is incredible.
polobunny said 3:11PM on 3-24-2010
Those sites are like dandelion. Cut 1 and 2 pop up. I hope you realize how hard it is to keep those sites from the results.
Ashutosh Mishra said 3:44PM on 3-24-2010
Yeah I know it's difficult, but how about a start? Antispyware.com is the most probably website anyone looking for an antispyware would visit. And the site has been selling rogueware for like 2 years (afaik), but Google hasn't taken it off its search results.
IMO Google and Bing should team up with safer surfing tools like WOT or LinkScanner and, at least, flag websites that are malicious.
Wayne said 11:45PM on 3-24-2010
THE most dangerous word is "FREE".
If you don't get infected, you'll more than likely get ripped-off.
I market online and try to be ethical about it, but with all the crap, it's damn hard.
Also, on the other hand, if it weren't for other peoples infected machines that I get PAID to "heal", I'd have a hard time getting by sometime.
Thanks Micro$
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redlamb said 6:56AM on 3-25-2010
agreed.
P Mc G said 10:20AM on 3-25-2010
@Ashutosh Mishra: There is a huge HUGE amazingly huge difference between being injected with malware/viruses unkowingly versus just being a complete ignorant moron. Google actively blocks viruses but they aren't about to block programs which actually do their job just because they keep marketing statistics on the side per YOUR AGREEMENT.
If you are that mad about marketing stats you should check out the tracking cookies that google/facebook/myspace/every major company in the world who does marketing uses... Privacy only exists when you don't exist to the rest of the world, move into the mountains in a trailer, and shut yourself off...
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ClaireB said 1:01PM on 3-25-2010
I was curious to note a couple of times that searches for answers to clues from crosswords published in popular UK newspapers resulted in malware a couple of times. The clues seemed too off-beat to be malware targets unless they were targeting these particular crossworders... bizarre!
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s10stealth said 5:24PM on 3-25-2010
What I don't understand is if I have antivirus on my PC, why can't the wire my internet comes in on have some sort of antivirus running and stop it before it even gets to me?
All that data only has to hit the sever once and then it can be blocked. Instant freed up bandwidth if multiple users aren't able to get fooled and download something dangerous.
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