Google has come up with various tools that are handy for the e-marketer to protect their websites from malicious attackers. They help to detect whether the online ad refers to a page that can insert malicious content to the user’s machine and compromise its security. It is imperative that the website for a brand shows ads that are clean from any malicious elements.
Google Safe Browsing API
The Safe Browsing API is an initiative by Google to maintain a blacklist of malicious websites. It can be downloaded locally to the user browser or may be connected to the list online. Google downloads a list of information to the user browser about sites that may contain malicious software or engage in phishing. To save space and to avoid giving out URLs to malware and phishing websites, the lists contain enough information in most cases to verify that if a site is phishing or malware, but does not contain enough information to definitively say if the site is phishing or malware. If the URL of the site the user is on matches anything in the list, the browser will contact Google’s servers for more information to make a decision. When user’s computer contacts Google to get more details about the specific URL fragment or update the list, it stores information from the computer including IP address, referrer header and a cookie. Google protects against targeted spear phishing attacks from unknown sources by analyzing the content on the site.
Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic Tool
The safe browsing diagnostic tool is an online implementation of the API. It is used to check if the website the user is trying to visit is known to host malware or carry out phishing attacks. The information returned includes:
a) The current listing status of a site and also information on how often a site or parts of it were listed in the past.
b) The last time Google analyzed the page, when it was last malicious, what kind of malware Google encountered etc.
c) Did the site facilitate the distribution of malicious software in the past?
d) Also, has the site has hosted malicious software in the past?
The user needs to enter the address of the site to get an analysis. For example for the user may enter the following URL in the browser:
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=<addr> to get the response as in the screenshot.
