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Live Search Fighting the Malware Plague

With blocked links and malicious code warnings

By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

4th of December 2008, 10:49 GMT

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Microsoft's commitment to offering end-users protection from malware does not stop with the promise of the free codename Morro antivirus planned for mid-2009. In this regard, the company has tweaked Live Search, enabling the search engine to prevent access to websites hosting malicious code. The addition of malware warnings is not synonymous with the complete disabling of potentially harmful links, users being given the option to access any URL, regardless of whether it is harmful or not, as long as they make the informed decision to disregard the risks.

“Live Search is proud to announce that, starting today, we are taking action against this plague. As Live Search crawls the web, we assess whether a page contains any malicious elements or exhibits any malicious behavior, and then flag questionable pages with a warning message,” revealed Christian Seifert, software design engineer, Live Search Anti-Spam & Anti-Malware Team.

Clicking on a disabled link will deliver a pop-up message window informing the user of the reason why access is blocked, along with the possibility to obtain additional information. Still, the extra data is not associated with the specific blocked content, but with general guidelines for malware. The popup warning message is also the place where Microsoft provides a functional link to websites flagged as malicious.

The Redmond giant informed that even reputable websites could find themselves blocked in Live Search. Such a scenario was related to hacked sites used by malicious third parties to spread malware. “In recent years, threats coming from web pages have significantly increased, from malicious programs hosted on web pages, to downloads that manipulate your computer and steal your personal information. In the past, these threats mainly came from questionable websites, but today even reputable sites can turn bad, which means that everyone is at risk for malware,” Seifert added.

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