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Posted by Panayiotis Mavrommatis,
Google Security Team

We recently began a series of
posts related to online security that focus on how we secure
information (with posts href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-google-keeps-your-information.html"
id="qyc5" >like href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-log-data-to-help-keep-you-safe.html"
id="kb5c" >these) and how you
can protect yourself online. Here's the latest in the series.-
Ed.

As part of this ongoing security series, we'd like to talk a
little about id="lase" >malware. The term malware, derived
from "malicious software," refers to any software
specifically designed to harm your computer or the software
it's running.

Malware can be added to your computer, with or without your
knowledge, in a number of ways — usually when you visit a website
containing malware or when you download seemingly innocent
software. It can then slow down your system, send fake emails from
your email account, steal sensitive information like credit card
numbers or passwords from your computer, and more.

The conventional wisdom was that you could avoid malware by
learning to spot sites that were created with the sole purpose of
spreading it, and by staying away from other sites that might be
risky. But href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/02/all-your-iframe-are-point-to-us.html"
id="jddj" >recent research from Google
suggests that an increasing number of malware attacks are taking
place on sites you'd normally regard as safe or legitimate, but
have actually been compromised.

Google works closely with the href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2007/11/help-us-fill-in-gaps.html"
id="kxrj" >security community to href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2007/05/introducing-googles-anti-malware.html"
id="oe4q" >identify malware on the web and
then href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2007/06/phishers-and-malware-authors-beware.html"
id="qn3p" >share that information more broadly.
We've set up a number of automated systems to scour our index
for potentially dangerous sites, and we href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=45449&topic=360&hl=en&sa=X&oi=malwarewarninglink&resnum=1&ct=help"
id="v9:q" >add a label to those that appear to be a vehicle for
malware. If you're searching on Google and click on a link that
we've flagged, a warning page will appear before you move
forward.

We also href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=45432"
id="am_8" >notify webmasters if we
discover that a site is no longer secure and provide a method for
webmasters that href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-sites-been-hacked-now-what.html"
id="ubgi" >clean up their sites to
href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/08/malware-reviews-via-webmaster-tools.html"
id="bkdz" >request a review. And
starting soon, we'll be providing more detail on sites that
appear to be spreading malware, so users have a better sense of why
we have flagged a given site and webmasters can more easily
identify and correct issues on their sites.

All this stems directly from our security philosophy: We believe
that if we all work together to identify threats and stamp them
out, we can make the web a safer place for everyone. Of course, we
can't catch everything, so our users play a

href="http://www.google.com/contact/security.html"
id="kp-b" >crucial part of this effort too. Below are a few tips
that can help you reduce your chances of being affected by
malware:

Use anti-virus
software. Most anti-virus software is specifically designed
to find and remove harmful software on your computer. Be sure you
have anti-virus software installed on your computer (you can get a
free trial through href="http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html?hl=en&gl=us"
id="a:vx" >Google Pack if you don't),
keep it current, and use it to run frequent full-system
checks.

Make sure your operating
system and browser are up to date. Attackers typically
target vulnerabilities in your href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system" id="neqc"
>operating system (OS) and your browser
to install malware on your computer. OS and browser providers
frequently release updates to close those vulnerabilities. Enable
automatic updates for both your browser and your OS, and check for
alerts to ensure you have the latest and greatest
protection.

Be careful about what you
download. While Google and everyone else in the online
community is working hard to identify harmful sites, new sources of
malware are emerging all the time. Whenever you're prompted to
download an email attachment, install a plug-in, or download an
unfamiliar piece of software, take a moment to think it through.
You won't always be able to identify a risky download, but if
you practice some reasonable caution, you'll be able to reduce
that risk.

If you come across a potentially dangerous site that hasn't
already been flagged, please href="http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/" >report
it. To learn more about malware and how to protect yourself,
check out StopBadware.org's href="http://www.stopbadware.org/home/help" id="b5qc"
>help page.

href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/blogspot/MKuf?a=mBxPUZG" > border="0" />

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Tags: , google, Mavrommatis, Panayiotis, Posted, recently, Security, teamWe