TORONTO – Internet giant Google is continuing its fight against malicious user attacks by opening up about the number of phishing scams and malware attacks found daily, along with the source of those malicious websites.
Google will now report how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted around the world and even how quickly websites are reinfected after they are cleaned of previous malware infections.
“Now, when we report that we find up to 10,000 unsafe sites per day, you can see what this really means,” read Google Canada’s blog.
The information can be found under a new section on Google’s ‘Transparency Report’ where users can find information about service disruptions and government requests for user data.
Read More: How to protect your computer from malware and phishing scams
“The purpose behind this is that we think everyone – technology companies, security experts, and policymakers – can do more to fight malware and phishing,” said a Google spokesperson.
“Shedding a light on the volume and sources of these attacks is a first step in fighting this problem.”
The site even includes a heat map that shows the proportion of sites found to be hosting malware after being identified by Google’s ‘Safe Browsing’ – a program that scans millions of websites to find sites that install malware on users’ computers without their knowledge.
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Users can also browse the ‘notes’ section which shows major global events that lead to temporary spikes in malware and phishing attacks.
The data collected by Google’s Safe Browsing is shared with developers and Internet companies around the world, including Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers, helping to keep around 1 billion users safe online.
But the initiative is especially important to Google’s Canadian teams – one-third of Google’s global anti-malware team is located in its Montreal office.
Read More: Google fights malware from Montreal
In an interview with Global News in February, Fabrice Jaubert, head of the anti-malware team in Montreal, said that the team confirms approximately 10,000 “bad” sites on a daily basis.
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