Google Releases Malicious Website Transparency Report for Safer Browsing

In a perfect online world, we'd all sing, "A surfing we will go, a surfing we will go, heigh-ho the derry-o, a surfing we will go," and off we'd go without fear of malware or malicious links or any of the other cruft that litters the web. Unfortunately, reality is far removed from most nursery rhymes, and the web is a dangerous place indeed. In an effort to bring attention to the matter and make sure webmasters are better equipped to recognize and address and compromised code, Google this week added a new section to its Transparency Report that reveals sources of malware and phishing attacks.

"You can now learn how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted around the world, how quickly websites become reinfected after their owners clean malware from their sites, and other tidbits we’ve surfaced," Google explained in a blog post. "Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services."

Google Unsafe Websites
Source: Google

Google first began hunting for and flagging suspicious websites in 2006. Fast forward to today and Google now processes around 10,000 potentially dangerous URLs each day. According to Google, many of these are legitimate websites that have been compromised, which is bad both for business owners as well as customers who visit their sites expecting a safe browsing experience.