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Google.com partially dangerous

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Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#91

Post by Animats »

Google is at the top of SiteTruth's list of major sites currently being exploited by phishing scams. 37 of them right now.[1] This list comes from a join of PhishTank and Open Directory - sites with some reasonable reputation and an active report in PhishTank. At one time, Microsoft and Yahoo were at the top, but they got better.

Any popular free hosting service ends up hosting phishing sites, but Google doesn't aggressively clean them out. Here's Google's oldest phishing site, from 2010.[2] It's an attempt to steal Habbo logins (Habbo is an old virtual world, similar to The Sims.) Lately, phishing via Google Drive is picking up. Phishing sites hosted on Google Spreadsheets have finally disappeared; you can put HTML in a spreadsheet cell and host a site that way. For a long time, Google didn't recognize that this was a way to host a fake site.

At least all the fake sites are under Google's subdomains (sites., drive., etc.) There used to be exploits using "google.com" as an open redirector.

[1] http://sitetruth.com/reports/phishes.html [2] https://sites.google.com/site/freehabbocoinsgbbo00/

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#92

Post by MichaelGG »

ceejayoz wrote: post #58
woogley wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some conjecture involved but I would be very surprised if Google actually sold AdWords for their own browser.

Deliberately? No, of course not. They can't just ban the word "Chrome" from AdWords, though. Spammers/malware authors are very good at figuring out what's needed to slip through the automated systems.

They've done this for Skype too. And the funnier thing is when I reported it to Skype, they claimed it was "OK" because it said TOM in the description (Skype's Chinese sponsor). Except the link did not have anything to do with Skype or TOM.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#93

Post by nitrogen »

MichaelGG wrote: post #92
ceejayoz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberately? No, of course not. They can't just ban the word "Chrome" from AdWords, though. Spammers/malware authors are very good at figuring out what's needed to slip through the automated systems.

They've done this for Skype too. And the funnier thing is when I reported it to Skype, they claimed it was "OK" because it said TOM in the description (Skype's Chinese sponsor). Except the link did not have anything to do with Skype or TOM.

Also important tools like PuTTY.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#94

Post by bob17 »

ethbro wrote: post #81
anon1385 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been testing these kinds of searches every now and again for a few years now (and complaining about it on HN regularly). The malware ads are generally intermittent and won't show all of the time. That doesn't mean they don't exist. I can assure you that for many years Google has been serving ads that link to malware for search terms like "firefox". I've seen them across different machines, different browsers, di…

Curious thought experiment: Wouldn't malicious actors always be able to profitably bid more than legitimate companies for AdWords? Assumptions: - Illegitimate business models are more profitable than legitimate ones

I recently read that AdWords charges much less if your site is already at the top of the organic search results, or something similar that.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#95

Post by nitrogen »

01Michael10 wrote: post #67
sp332 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one I replied to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11526264 is about Bing and DDG.

My bad... You still have some issue.

Ad for everydownload shows up at the top of ddg for me on Chrome Android. Are you this incredulous, or just trolling?

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#97

Post by bob17 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #59
anon1385 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At the moment users are mostly deciding that the risk is worth it. Users aren't making a conscious decision. Browser vendors are making the decision for them. Most people don't change the default settings, especially something that claims to make your browsing "safer".

> Most people don't change the default settings... We're talking about Chrome, a browser that comes as the default setting on zero major operating systems.

Android, it now has the safe browsing API built into Play services.

https://security.googleblog.com/2015/12/protecting-hundreds-...

I wonder if newer versions of SamsungBrowser use it.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#98

Post by dgacmu »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #72

Google is at a very influential position these days, everything is Google, and Facebook is trying it's damnest to become like Google. Google, for the most parts, is the Internet, chrome, gmail, search engine, android, good lord even walking robots! We are lucky that they g+ failed miserably :D Otherwise we'd not have Internet, we'd have Google, nothing in the world beyond it. Nobody to check it's power, except maybe…

You're getting downvoted because you're making an easily falsifiable claim. AWS hosts an absolutely staggering number of websites. Heck - DreamHost has 1.5 million sites. EIG, through a ton of subsidiary brands, hosts millions of sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group

It may be surprising to those of us who hang out on HN, but Hotmail has over 360 million email customers. Yahoo (okay, okay) has over a quarter of a million. Yandex and QQ have dominant regional market share.

Access? Comcast, Verizon, I'm looking at you, at least in the U.S.

Backbone? Hi, AT&T, L3, NTT, .

Amusing that you have a Macbook pro. I think there might be a $579B company with a huge market share of the mobile market (safari, not Chrome) sitting there.

Facts and actual data talk, not fear and rhetoric. The world has nuance that deserves credit.

Re: Google.com partially dangerous

#100

Post by magicalist »

lrvick wrote: post #12

Related: The blog that announces their new security suite for Chrome, fails the security suite for Chrome. See screenshot https://twitter.com/lrvick/status/692282829619777537

That's as related as being shocked that the https lock isn't green on all Google properties. It's just a mixed content warning.
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