Warning on search engine safety
Teenage boy listening to music, BBC/Corbis
Free music downloads have their risks, warns a report
Some net searches are leading users to websites that
expose them to spam, spyware and other dangerous
downloads, reveals a report.
According to the research the most dangerous words to
search for are "free screensavers".
The report found that 64% of the sites found using
this phrase were flagged as causing problems for
users.
The authors urged search sites to tighten up rules to
ensure users are not inadvertently exposed to harm.
Dangerous game
It is well known that visiting sites offering porn,
gambling and free MP3s leaves users at serious risk of
falling victim to spyware and adware. However,
the research by Ben Edelman and Hannah Rosenbaum
reveals that those carrying out searches for innocuous
subjects are at risk too.
The report looked at the websites returned for 1,394
popular keywords searches found via Google, Yahoo,
MSN, AOL and Ask.
The results returned for each search term were then
analysed using the Site Advisor security tool. Once
installed this piece of software warns users when
they browse websites known to be dangerous.
The most benign of the pages that Site Advisor flags
up try to change browser settings (to redirect people
to ad sites) and the most dangerous deluge users
with spam or bundle adware and spyware in with
downloads.
In one case signing up with one site led to a test
e-mail address getting more than 300 spam messages per
week.
DANGEROUS KEYWORDS
Free screensavers
Bearshare
Screensavers
Winmx
Limewire
Download Yahoo messenger
Lime wire
Free ringtones
Some of these risky sites use security flaws and
loopholes in browsers to install software without
users' knowledge and can lead to that machine being
hijacked
or to a user losing personal data.
The riskiest search terms were associated with
downloads (such as "screensavers" and "free
ringtones") and file-sharing (such as "Bearshare" and
"limewire").
Searching under these categories returned a
substantial proportion of dangerous sites.
The authors speculate that spammers and scammers are
turning to websites to try to snare victims as efforts
are made to stop spam before it reaches e-mail
inboxes.
"Where internet users go, attackers follow," wrote the
authors.
Across all searches approximately 4-6% of sites
returned were flagged as dangerous. The authors noted
that this was more "alarming" than it first appeared
because American net users carry out almost 6 billion
searches per month. This translates to 285 million
clicks on these potentially dangerous sites every
month.
"Even a single visit to a dangerous site can have
serious and lasting implications for the average
internet user," wrote the authors.
The number of risky sites increases when users click
on sponsored results - the adverts generated to
accompany particular search terms. Dangerous sites
are two to four times as common in sponsored results
found the research.
"We are troubled by the untrustworthiness of search
engines' ads," said the authors.
The authors urged the search engines to get much
tougher on those who buy adverts to accompany searches
and expose those that abuse visitors.
"We're alarmed by the scope of these problems - by the
many ways search engines lead users to sites that turn
out to be untrustworthy or worse," concluded
the report.
Regards,
Shadab Husain.
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