Malware has put down roots into Google Blogger
Google Blogger, the blogging platform available since 1999 has turned into a privileged spreading tool for computer infections, going as far as hosting 2% of all the malware currently circulating through the connected world. So say Sophos security enterprise, that with numbers in its hands raises the alarm and states that the fault is not entirely of Google. Maybe.
Given the gratuitousness of the hosting service offered by Blogger, the “good fella” of the Net have developed a taste for opening bogus web pages which only purpose is to hold malicious code to spread on the unlucky visitors systems. Very used, according to Sophos gathering, the technique of publishing links to infected blogs in the comments leaved on the other bloggers posts too.
The problem would likely to be in the tight bond between the blogging platform and the indexing services of the Google search engine, a blend that according to the Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley attracts crackers as honey attracts bees because the contents hosted on Blogger “get spidered instantly” by the Mountain View crawlers, guaranteeing them visibility in searches and a prompt net presence.
In short Google would help malware spreading by blogs, states Sophos, but would do it indirectly and so the company can’t be blamed for connivance with net criminals and malware writers. Google is however active in the effort to safeguard the users by keeping out, in a proactive manner, the search results potentially malicious for clients. And it can’t be hypothesized, continues Cluley, to scan in real time the enormous mass of contents available in the new blogs because “the sheer weight of legitimate traffic makes that unworkable“.
“We see 16,000 malicious web pages added every day – that’s one every five seconds, and that’s just little old Sophos. Google may see more than that” says the expert. For his part Mountain View appears crystalline in his policy against malware delivery through its servers, stating clearly that “using Blogger, or any Google product, to serve or host malware is a violation of our product policies. We actively work to detect and remove sites that serve malware from our network“.