Thousands of Images on Google Are Infected with Malicious Code

This updated guide examines Thousands of Images on Google Are Infected with Malicious Code and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

According to the SANS Security Research Center, some images on Google have been infected by malicious code, which leads users to websites that sell fake antivirus software or make users believe they have to download a program. certain (is a hacker's fake product) to fight viruses.

SANS believes that scammers used images from third-party websites so that images appear officially on Google. In particular, scammers often use keywords that are heavily searched from the Google Trends database so that those infected images are searched more.

When a user clicks on a malicious thumbnail (thumbnail), their browser sends a request to the website controlled by the hacker to run a program to point to the page. Web solicit users to download or buy fake antivirus software. SANS predicts about 5,000 websites are controlled by hackers and about half a million people visit these every day through Google image search service.

Bojan Zdrnja, a Croatian security expert, developed an "add-on" tool for the Firefox browser that can display infected images with red borders. However, this tool is not currently available for general use.

Jay Nancarrow, a Google spokesperson, told the Krebsonsecurity security blog that the company is working hard to improve both the quality of its search results and the ability to detect malicious code.