Google Alert Sent Me Malware

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Google Alert Sent Me Malware

you may want to check carefully

old_expat

7:43 am on Jan 4, 2009 (gmt 0)

I use a number of Google alerts. Today I got a nasty one.

Background
A couple of months ago I somehow downloaded a trojan which compromised my desktop and allowed my Adwords account to be taken over.

Today
I believe I discovered how that happened. I have a series of Google Alerts. Today one of them, via email, sent an alert that had malware associated with it. On mouseover, one of those URLs attempted to make a network connection to my PC. Comodo asked if I wanted to join the network.

When my account was hacked, I was using ZoneAlarm .. which the Trojan apparently disabled.

Be careful
I reported this to Google in hopes that they will consider checking the emails they send out as alerts.

tomcam

2:17 am on Jan 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

Happened to me too--on a Mac running Safari. Not a good thing.

Tropical Island

1:41 pm on Jan 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

Happened to me as well.

Norton caught it.

I'm now very careful which Google Alerts I use and only open them with Chrome.

old_expat

6:00 am on Jan 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm now very careful which Google Alerts I use and only open them with Chrome.

If gmail doesn't catch this malware, do you think Chrome will? (honest question, not a retort)

Tropical Island

1:05 pm on Jan 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

I think with what I understand about the way Chrome handles things that malware would not download.