Yahoo! adds malware warnings to search results

Filed under: Internet, Security, Yahoo!, Search

Yahoo! adds malware warnings to search results

by Brad Linder May 6th 2008

Yahoo! has partnered with McAfee to integrated the security firm's SiteAdvisor technology in Yahoo! search results. That means Yahoo! will remove some of the most dangerous sites from search results altogether, and will include highly visible warning messages on search listings that force downloads, include browser exploits, or sites that send unsolicited emails.

Google offers a similar service, through a partnership with Stop Badware. But Google doesn't check for web sites that initiated automatic downloads when you load them, or sites that include links to harmful web pages. Yahoo!'s new SearchScan feature does.

SearchScan will be turned on by default for Yahoo! users in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Spain. You can turn it off by visiting the SearchScan settings page.

Tags: malware, mcafee, searchscan, security, yahoo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JayMonster said 12:42PM on 5-06-2008

I used site advisor some time ago, and unless they fixed their model a bit, this is not necessarily the good thing it at first blush appears to be.

I have seen plenty of real sites listed as Red Flagged, including PC Magazine, ZDNet, and others. And if you start not trusting Site Advisor, well then the warnings are pretty much useless.

Mike S. said 12:52PM on 5-06-2008

Garbage... Who uses Yahoo! anyway.. or McAfee for that matter. If you see a ~500kb executable file with some glorious program name on it.. It's probably a virus. If you're on some shady-ass web site, you probably know it from all the porn ads littering the edge.

This seems more like a ploy to divide up internet traffic further by scaring the average surfer away from anything marked with a flag.

aanidaani said 1:27PM on 5-06-2008

This would be great if anyone actually used Yahoo's search...

jared said 4:17PM on 5-16-2008

sooner or later some hacker will figure out a way to overcome this scanning by yahoo or google. it is still way better to run an anti-virus on your pc..

http://hubpages.com/hub/AVG-Virus-Protection

Jim Buckley said 5:45PM on 7-15-2008

Yahoo has posted a false “Unsolicited Emails” warning associated with our website, www.rumford.com, when searching for “Rumford fireplaces”. The warning is generated by Yahoo’s partner, McAfee SiteAdvisor. It's literally false because SiteAdvisor says they made that determination by “entering our e-mail address on this site”. They could not have automatically posted a test email address on our website. We have no forms or any other way to automatically enter an email message. I do all the site maintenance manually in html and sweep all the pages onto the Internet myself.

Thinking that SiteAdvisor had somehow made a simple mistake, I tried to contact them by phone and email - to no avail. After a month of trying, I have not gotten to anyone who will listen. Rather, I get transferred from one anonymous customer relations person to another. Same with McAfee and Yahoo says there is nothing they can do - my problem is with McAfee.

So I have complained to the Washington Attorney General and the California and Texas Better Business Bureau and have hired a lawyer - just to try to get someone in authority who will take some responsibility.

I have also spent some time surfing the blogs to see what others think about McAfee and Yahoo. I learned that McAfee falsely targets many websites with their faulty but arrogantly defended technology - and then blames their victims. There is plenty of discussion about the websites McAfee has falsely red tagged on several blogs.

As a result of the Better Business Bureau complaint I have had several email exchanges with Kimberly R. Smith at McAfee, She hasn't dealt with the fact that the McAfee crawler could not have placed a test email address on our website. I know that Ms. Smith does understand the question. On July 11 she wrote in classic non-sequitur doublespeak: "McAfee's position has been expressed clearly to you, I'm sorry that you find this unsatisfactory. I'm unsure how else to say that your site was tested and received a rating based on that result. When the site is retested if no forms are found and your site warrants an adjustment, the rating will be changed."

Ms. Smith went on to say that McAfee "will not provide the criteria or steps involved to you. That could jeopardize the outcome of our tests to your site and other sites as well."

In other words, McAfee will not admit they made a mistake. Even if they do eventually correct their error, their company line is that they will re-test and change our rating if we warrant an adjustment. They have made an error and are covering it up, making it seem to be our fault, in an attempt to avoid legal responsibility.

I would let it go if they had double checked when I first contacted them to see that they had made a mistake and then removed the false warning. Instead McAfee has been unresponsive, arrogant and fundamentally dishonest. It has taken six weeks, and the BBB, to get even this dishonest answer and they have not yet corrected their mistake. The erroneous warning is still associated with our website continuing to drive away our customers.

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