Search is Safe?
Search is Safe?
December 19, 2006: According to McAfee, 2006 was that year the results generated from search engines became safe. Well almost.
While the overall risk involved in search engines has declined since May by 12 percent, 4.4 percent of all search results are still considered risky by McAfee’s SiteAdvisor service.
The SiteAdvisor works by rating sites according to potential threats they contain such as excessive pop-up ads, spyware and viruses. In order to establish the onslaught of risk in the everyday user experience, McAfee undertook the study by running over 2,500 popular keyword searches and analysing what the top five search engines produced on the first five pages they returned.
With searches run across Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask, the McAfee SiteAdvisor gave the more popular results a red, yellow or green rating. Red was given for those that failed McAfee’s ‘safe’ tests by containing hints of adware, spyware, viruses and other threats, yellow was branded on those that passed the test, yet contained nuisances warranting a user advisory, while green was granted to those that passed all safe tests conducted by McAfee.
No surprises found in the fact that adult-related keyword searches returned a greater level of risk then their non-adult search counterparts. Meanwhile searches containing the word ‘free’ deliver a disproportionately high level of risk.
Email signups contained in sites that resulted in spam accounted for 41 percent of risk ratings given. Scams and risky downloads were also responsible for a great deal of the risk recorded, while three percent of risky results were said to contain serious browser exploits with the potential to damage a PC if a user merely browsed the site.
“It’s good to see that clicking on search engine results has gotten modestly safer,” says Chris Dixon, director of strategy, McAfee SiteAdvisor. “But when almost one of 12 sponsored links still clicks through to a risky site, there remains significant room for continued improvement.”
McAfee says Google, AOL and Ask now return safer results then in May when the study commenced, but Yahoo! and MSN now return riskier results.