SiteAdvisor: Search Engines Take Users To Spyware Sites

marretas

May 13 2006, 12:30 PM

According SiteAdvisor research, 5% of searched queries result in a search engine may cause damages to useres and users computers. A report about "Online Search Security" says that none of these Web portals show 100% secure results. The Accurently results was from MSN that only showed 3.9% of malicious websites, followed by Yahoo with 4.3% and the world largest search engine , Google , in third along with AOL with 5.3%.
Portals like Google, MSN and Yahoo redirect useres to spyware sites witch sent Spam and invade the computers, all this according to SiteAvisor.

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pyost

May 13 2006, 12:35 PM

Another thing that makes the search engines good - they don't filter out web sites. If they were blocked, we would probably have trouble when searching for something, and some good web sites might be blocked, too. Google crawls everything, and it's impossible for the spiders to know wheater the web site is malicious. And, of course, you will probably find a normal web site, unless you are searching for something illigal or similar.

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miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

May 13 2006, 01:32 PM

This reminds me - does anyone use the SiteAdvisor extension for Firefox?

I've been using it for a while - it's a real cool tool. It sits in the firefox status bar and turns the following colors depending on site content:

RED - Potentially harmful site with Malware and/or SPAM originator.
GREEN - Site fine from every aspect.
GREY - Neutral (Not Tested) Sites.

Clicking on the icon brings up a small menu, which looks like this:

Clicking on the View Site Details option, takes you to the SiteAdvisor site, where they display a detailed analysis of your site including:

Overall test results & some minor statistics like when the site was founded, location, popularity etc.
Emails sent out by site every month
Download Tests
Online affiliations - i.e. the sites this particular site links to - and if any of those sites are harmful in any way
Annoyances
User Reviews

The screen looks like this:

Moreover, even when you do a search (I've tested only in Google) - SiteAdvisor shows the site ratings beside every search result - which is quite related to the topic of the discussion here. Let the search engines return hits to all possible sites, and use SiteAdvisor or some similar policing tool to figure out which site you should visit, and which you shouldn't. If you hover your mouse on the site rating icon, a small window pops up showing you the site characteristics in brief. It looks like this:

All in all I find this an invaluable tool and have really grown to like it over the past few months that I've been using it. I think this is a MUST HAVE for everyone.. however street-wise (or net-wise, if you will) we might consider ourself

The extension can be grabbed directly from their site at: http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/ff.html

They've even got a similar plugin for IE - simply visit SiteAdvisor.Com and click on Download and you'll be automatically directed to the download page appropriate for your browser.

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ganeshn11

May 13 2006, 01:44 PM

Hey I too use this, and its a really great tool, every one should have this SiteAdvisor. But it does not stop or alarm you from entering porno sites, or does it? If anyone here has a freeware tool like SiteAdvisor but for preventing users to view such sick sites, please do mention it.

Cheers!

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miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

May 13 2006, 02:22 PM

QUOTE(ganeshn11 @ May 13 2006, 08:44 PM)

Heyyyyyyy.. wait a sec !! You're what, 15 ?? And you say PORNO IS SICK !!

Dude, you're not normal

Go see a shrink

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ganeshn11

May 13 2006, 02:37 PM

And what do expect me to say? Yummy? Huh, I asked for sometool that will help me get rid of it.

One more thing is that there is some kinda spyware/adware stuck on my system, it keeps opening a browser kind of window and asks me to download some sexy football girs, some dum **** software, etc. Its getting annoying. I am using Micro$oft Windows Defender and Norton Anti-Virus 2005. I ran a full system scan on both and it seems that both don't detect it (know dont tell to update my definitions, duh its updated).

Do anyone of you here have any clue on this, it just started to magically appear.

Oh my god it poped-up again, let me close it before my parents see it.

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twitch

May 13 2006, 04:19 PM

Try not using Microsoft products for home security. Much like their other softwares, it probably contains more security loop-holes than it tries to protect.

I love AVG and McAfee VirusScan.

Try using anti-spyware softwares like Adaware or Spybot: Search and Destroy (be careful not to activate the system shield on the second one).

As for the topic, you only run into trouble if you keep your eyes closed and try and search for naturally dangerous things, like m^e's example of serial number. Of course it is going to bring up serial number sites, that are more often packed with spyware and adware.

I think in Google's quest for new search algorithms, it should include math to detect anything that is malicious. It would probably take the spiders longer and they would be more bulky, but it would ensure the safety of the user, and thus highten Google's own market rank. For example, they could have another field in the results table which shows Red, Amber or Green for the warning level. Much like integrating the Firefox SiteAdvisor extension.

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WeaponX

May 13 2006, 11:12 PM

Noticed this a while back already. I'm usually helping users remove spyware and many times I have stumbled to some "spyware removal" sites which is in fact spyware themselves. There must be some way for search engines to detect these sites...possibly by blacklisting them from the searches. But this might take too much work on their side...so the cons probably outweigh the pros in this case...

ganeshn11, do you still have that spyware/popup issue? Try running the steps outlined at the tutorial I wrote up here and see if it helps.

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evought

May 15 2006, 03:02 PM

QUOTE(marretas @ May 13 2006, 07:30 AM)

Something else to keep in mind:

When I told my wife about this, she said "Well, we don't have to worry about that on the Linux ox, right." That is mostly true. Obviously spyware or malware targetted at Windows will not work on Linux, however, sites that steal your credit information or compile lists of email addresses or whatever still work. On Linux you have to actively *do* something to get yourself in trouble, but you can get in to trouble if you try.

I am reminded of an email I got once which claimed to be a Linux virus. It came with installation instructions:
1) Please save this archive to your home directory and run:
tar -xzf virus.tgz
2) Then cd into the created directory and run
./configure && make
3) Finally, become root and:
make install

Congratulations, you have now been infected. If you have any problems with this virus, please send email to bugs@badlinuxstuff.org.

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wojta

Jun 1 2006, 09:14 AM

QUOTE(marretas @ May 13 2006, 01:30 PM)

check this out siteadvisor for google

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Chesso

Oct 13 2007, 03:34 AM

He is right, it is sick.

Even if some of us look at it (he/she probably does or has), it still doesn't make it a good thing lol, we make mistakes and do nasty things sometimes but it doesn't always mean we think it's good or condone it.

Anyway, I haven't used this "extension?" before, haven't heard of it until now actually.

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