- Thursday, 12 November 2009
- INQ Mobile
- RSS
This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication - Western Union memo, 1876
McAfee warns SMBs about web search
INSECURITY OUTFIT McAfee has warned SMBs that the most poisonous thing that their staff can type into a web browser is "screensaver".
According to McAfee, some of the riskiest searches on the Internet today are associated with finding items for free or looking for work that can be done from home.
Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Product Development and Avert Labs, said that hackers create sites to lure punters into downloading malicious software that leads them to blindly hand over their personal assets to cybercriminals.
More than 59.1 per cent of sites linked to the word "screen saver" are poisoned. The next worst word to search for is "lyrics".
Typing in the tradename Viagra is not as hard on your system as you might think, said McAfee. But one in five sites found with searches using the word "free" will get you malware. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
Googleing: "free screensaver with lyrics" :-)
Odd that McAfee didn't go on to mention that AVG provides a free link checker with it's free antivirus which warns/blocks you from going to the sites dishing out these kind of screensavers...
With reference to AVG's link scanner, it only checks for malicious code on the website. It won't alert you to harmful downloads or criminal intent. In fact, very few commercial security products will stop a user from downloading this crap. In AVG's defence, at least it is a start but a green tick against a search result does NOT guarantee the website and potential downloads from it are safe. A red cross, however, can be read as avoid like the plague. I do like AVG software, but the green tick is almost as meaningless as an Anti-virus package declaring, "You are protected"!
Thought Firefox does it via google?
And if the search is performed via google, it would have warned of "malicious" content anyhow.
Run them all with a damned link checker turned on!
Solution install Avast and send a message to AVG that those type of default options are not acceptable. Besides people whom need a helping hand to guide them with everything they do, shouldn't own a PC but a Mac if they must own a computer.