You practice safe computing, so why do you still see malware?

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/201...fe-computing-so-why-do-you-still-see-malware/

 

That link mentions searching for images.
A while ago, in the Google Chrome help forum, someone had mentioned that doing image searches on Google could have interesting consequences. And some of us, self included, were quite sceptical!

 

Yeah, getting infected by an image is unlikely (though possible) and I doubt that happened quite as the user in that topic was saying. More likely they clicked an image, a download was initiated that they accepted/ started, and then I guess they ran it as well? That or they were already infected and their browser was being redirected.

I think the idea of the article is that people are getting malware on their computer:
1) Without being infected (a lot seem to have been macs)
2) Without their knowledge

So it's a bunch of potential infections that just didn't go through but they absolutely could have.

 

That user was angry and not willing to reveal too much!

 

Yeah... I read the Chrome help forums once in a while... they basically get angry about things that are probably software conflicts and they almost never provide relevant information.

 

I've done image searches with Dogpile (which uses Google as one of its engines), and once in a blue moon clicking on a thumbnail-link results in a fairly long delay and then FreeDownloadManager kicking in wanting to download an EXE. Naturally I cancel that, then go back to the Firefox window and cancel it there too (I've got FDM set up to revert to the browser's downloader if I cancel in FDM).

Those might or might not be malicious, and the same kind of thing others have encountered, but why take chances?

It's far more common, when doing image searches, to run into one variation or another of the "no hot-linking, please" message, which is of course merely a minor but disappointing inconvenience and quite understandable in view of bandwidth usage.

 

Thread Title Question:
You practice safe computing, so why do you still see malware?

Answer:
$,$$$,$$$.$$


HKEY1952

 

That one Chrome Help Forum topic is pretty classic. It's the ever-present "But I didn't click anything!" that we all hear too often.