Google Warns: The Internet May Harm Your Computer?
February 12, 2009
From WashingtonPost.com’s Security Fix: A glitch in a computer security program embedded deeply into Google’s search engine briefly prevented users of the popular search engine from visiting any Web sites turned up in search results this morning. Instead, Google users were redirected to page that warned: “This site may harm your computer.”
Why, of course the the Intertubes can damage your computer. Especially if you’re running an unpatched version of Windows as “administrator”, with no firewall, no anti-virus, and browsing with insanely out of date versions of Internet Explorer and flash, among others.
This is the default position I take when teaching “Practical Privacy and Simple Security” for people working in adverse conditions: assume that it’s insecure until you’ve taken the appropriate steps to assure otherwise.
Fortunately, in this case it was just a minor string matching goof writ large.
Doubly fortunate is that it’s not that hard to protect the valuable information that lives on your computer’s hard drive and enters and exits through your network connection.
