Websense, a well known security vendor has created software that turns the worlds most popular web search engine into an Internet virus scanner, capable of finding websites hosting malware. Using a binary search feature Google is able to look inside hosted .exe files that are normally unreadable. Researchers at Websense developed software tools that use this feature and are able to "google" for stings known to be used in popular malware worms such as Bagel and Mytob. They uncovered more than 2,000 websites hosting these malicious files and also were able to detect legitimate sites that had been hacked.
Websense has stated they do not plan to make the code public at this time and only plan to share it with a select group of researchers. Some people fear that this same technique could be used to manipulate the search engine and trick users into downloading malware. Now that the word is out, it will be interesting to see if similar tools are developed and made available to the public that use the same technique.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126371,00.asp
Websense has stated they do not plan to make the code public at this time and only plan to share it with a select group of researchers. Some people fear that this same technique could be used to manipulate the search engine and trick users into downloading malware. Now that the word is out, it will be interesting to see if similar tools are developed and made available to the public that use the same technique.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,126371,00.asp
