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    Google tells you when your PC is infected by malware

    ArchivesGoogle tells you when your PC is infected by malware

    Proving once again why they’re a spectacularly awesome company, Google now tells its users if their PCs are currently hosting malware. The malware alert appears as a yellow stripe on the top of their web search results when Google determines that your PC is sending questionable traffic.  Google security engineer Damian Menscher said in the Google Online Security Blog that “recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or malware.”

    Aside from notifying people that their PCs are infected, Google also provides a link on how to fix the issues in your PC. While this shouldn’t be considered as a replacement for traditional anti-virus software, it’s a nice gesture nonetheless from the search giant. Unfortunately, the pessimist in us sees the potential abuse this particular functionality opens up for virus and malware writers, as there are already malicious code writers that use the old “your computer may be infected” trick to get you to install their software on your PC. As always, be vigilant on the things you click and download online.

    Source: Google Security Blog

     

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