Transparency Report: Protecting emails as they travel across the web

When you mail a letter to your friend, you hope she’ll be the only person who reads it. But a lot could happen to that letter on its way from you to her, and prying eyes might try to take a look. That’s why we send important messages in sealed envelopes, rather than on postcards.

Email works in a similar way. Emails that are encrypted as they’re routed from sender to receiver are like sealed envelopes, and less vulnerable to snooping—whether by bad actors or through government surveillance—than postcards.

But some email is more secure than others. So to help you better understand whether your emails are protected by encryption, we’re launching a new section in the Transparency Report.

Gmail has always supported encryption in transit by using Transport Layer Security (TLS), and will automatically encrypt your incoming and outgoing emails if it can. The important thing is that both sides of an email exchange need to support encryption for it to work; Gmail can't do it alone.

Our data show that approximately 40 to 50 percent of emails sent between Gmail and other email providers aren’t encrypted. Many providers have turned on encryption, and others have said they’re going to, which is great news. As they do, more and more emails will be shielded from snooping.

For people looking for even stronger email security, end-to-end encryption is a good option—but it’s been hard to use. So today we’re making available the source code for End-to-End, a Chrome extension. It's currently in testing, and once it's ready for general use it will make this technology easier for those who choose to use it.

We encourage you to find tips about choosing strong passwords and adding another layer of protection to your account in our Safety Center. And check out Reset the Net, a broad coalition of organizations, companies and individuals coming together this week to promote stronger security practices on the web; we’re happy to be a participant in that effort.

Posted by Brandon Long, Tech Lead, Gmail Delivery Team

Google Settings Page for Phone Numbers

Google's account settings page has an updated section for phone numbers that groups some features that were already available elsewhere. If you click "edit" next to "phone numbers", Google will show the phone numbers associated with your account.

You'll probably see a phone number associated with Hangouts. You can enable or disable this setting: "Help people who have your phone number find and connect with you on Google services, like Hangouts and caller ID by Google." You can edit the phone number, change the way it's verified or remove the number.

There's also a phone number that's used for account recovery. Google encourages users to enable this feature, but it's optional. For now, the account recovery page is not integrated with the account settings page, so it looks different and has a long URL. "We'll use your phone to do things like challenge hijackers or send you a text message to help you access your account if you forget your password," informs Google.

The phone number management page was added back in May, but now it's more functional.

{ Thanks, Herin. }

New Interface for Google's Account Permissions Page

Google's account permissions page has a new interface which does a better job at listing the permissions, shows bigger thumbnails and the date when you authorized a service.

"On the Account Permissions tab of your Google Account, you can see a list of third-party sites and applications. These are sites and applications to which you've granted permission to access your Google Account, and you can see on this list to what parts of your account they have access. For example, you might have downloaded an app that helps you schedule workouts with friends. This application might have requested access to your Google Calendar and Contacts to suggest times and friends for you to meet up with," informs Google's help center.

Google shows your Android and iOS devices at the top of the page. My Nexus 7 tablet was listed 3 times, so I clicked "Revoke access" next to the entries that include: "Inactive - We haven't seen activity from this device for at least 60 days."

If you see some services you no longer use, click "Revoke access". You'll be asked for permission the next time you use them.

{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Google Operating System, Again a Phishing Site?

Back in September, I wrote about Netcraft, who incorrectly flagged this blog as phishing. Many applications use the Netcraft backlist, so Opera, Kaspersky and probably other apps prevent users from visiting this site. I reported this issue to Netcraft, who solved it, but the site was added again to the blacklist a few days later. A Netcraft employee promised to flag the site as safe.

The issue is that Netcraft only flagged googlesystem.blogspot.com. Blogger redirects to domains like blogspot.co.uk, blogspot.ro, depending on your country. Now Netcraft flags as phishing all googlesystem.blogspot.* URLs, except for googlesystem.blogspot.com. According to VirusTotal, security tools from ESET, Fortinet and Kaspersky show phishing warnings for this blog.

Google Safe Browsing also shows a phishing warning for googlesystem.blogspot.ca, googlesystem.blogspot.se, googlesystem.blogspot.ro, googlesystem.blogspot.com.br and probably other similar URLs. Google Safe Browsing is used by Chrome, Firefox, and Safari for desktop. "Reported Phishing Website Ahead! Google Chrome has blocked access to googlesystem.blogspot.com.br. This website has been reported as a phishing website. Phishing websites are designed to trick you into disclosing your login, password or other sensitive information by disguising themselves as other websites you may trust."

I reported this issue to Netcraft and Google, so hopefully it will be solved. I just don't understand what triggered these phishing warnings and why they're no longer limited to Netcraft.

Update: After a few hours, the issue was fixed.

{ Thanks, Manuel Janeiro. }

Google Operating System, Phishing Site?

If you use Opera to visit the site, you'll probably see this warning: "This site has been reported as fraudulent. Exchanging sensitive or confidential information with this site could put you at risk for identity theft and/or financial fraud. Opera Software strongly discourages visiting this page."

Opera uses Netcraft's phishing blacklist. You'll get a similar warning if you install Netcraft's toolbar:

Netcraft's site report page doesn't provide too many useful information. I could only find that the Google OS blog has a 5/10 risk rating, but the rating varies depending on the URL. The recent post about the Google logo has a 7/10 risk rating.

Many factors contribute to the risk rating of each site. The dominant factor for most sites is the age of the domain name in which the site appears. Domain names that have never been seen in the Netcraft Web Server Survey are given a high risk rating, since many phishing sites and relatively few legitimate sites fall into this category. Other factors which can influence the risk rating include:

* Any other known phishing sites in the same domain.
* Whether a hostname or a numeric IP address is used in the URL.
* Whether or not a port number appears in the URL.
* The hosting ISP's history with respect to phishing sites.
* The hosting country's history with respect to phishing sites.
* The top level domain's history with respect to phishing sites.
* The site's popularity with Netcraft Extension users.

So just because other Blogger blogs are used for phishing, Netcraft decided that this is a phishing site? It's hard to say. Google's official blog has a 0/10 risk rating, while a random blog like googlelatlong.blogspot.com (it's not Google's Maps blog) has a 7/10 risk rating, but there's no warning.

A site that lets you check multiple anti-phishing blacklists is the Google-owned VirusTotal. "VirusTotal is a free service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs and facilitates the quick detection of viruses, worms, trojans, and all kinds of malware." VirusTotal reported that there are 3 services that flag the Google OS blog: Opera, Netcraft and Kaspersky. They probably have the same source.

Here's Kaspersky's "access denied" message:

Ironically, a recent blog post from Kaspersky's site informs that: "Kaspersky's product blocked 99 percent of the 187 phishing websites while producing zero false alarms among the 400 legitimate URLs, earning first place among its competitors with an Advanced + award from AV-Comparatives."

I used Netcraft's browser extension to report that the URL was flagged by mistake and received this message after a few minutes: "Thank you for your enquiry. Following a review of the URL in question, I have unblocked the URL from the toolbar. Please allow a short period of time for the changes to propagate."

{ Thanks, Josh Rich. He reported this issue. }

The Android Bug 8219321

There's a lot of talk about an Android security bug that affects almost all the Android devices. Jeff Forristal from Bluebox Security reported that "the vulnerability involves discrepancies in how Android applications are cryptographically verified & installed, allowing for APK code modification without breaking the cryptographic signature. Details of Android security bug 8219321 were responsibly disclosed through Bluebox Security's close relationship with Google in February 2013."

So the bug could allow someone to create a modified version of an system app and trick other people to install it. The modified version could include malicious code.

Actually, the bug is simple: APK files are ZIP archives and Android allows APK files to include files with the same name. "It's a problem in the way Android handles APKs that have duplicate file names inside," says Pau Oliva Fora, security engineer at security firm ViaForensics. "The entry which is verified for signature is the second one inside the APK, and the entry which ends up being installed is the first one inside the APK - the injected one that can contain the malicious payload and is not checked for signature at all."

The problem is that Android supported duplicate file names in APKs and the patch removed this support. The patch is extremely simple: return an error if the APK file has duplicate file names.

Apparently, Geremy Condra from Google wrote a patch in February. "Google made changes to Google Play in order to detect apps modified in this way and a patch has already been shared with device manufacturers," informs ComputerWorld. CyanogenMod included the bug fix in the latest release, faster than OEMs and even Google, which didn't update Nexus devices to address this issue.

The bug #8219321 is now a test that will show us how fast Google, OEMs and carriers can deploy security patches. For now, CyanogenMod is the place to go to get the latest features and security patches.

Google Shows Your Recent Sign-ins

There's a new section in the Google Account settings page: recent activity. Google shows a list of recent sign-ins and other security-related actions, with information about the browser, device, IP address and approximate location.

The feature seems similar to Gmail's account activity feature, but it's not. Gmail's feature shows information about about recent activity, whether it's from a browser or an email client, and it's only limited to Gmail. Google's new recent activity feature shows "security-related actions you've taken, like signing in to your Google Account, changing your password, or adding a recovery email address or phone number. This information is for your entire Google Account, so sign-ins from any Google product (such as Blogger, Gmail, or YouTube) will be listed in this section."

There's a subtle difference: "A sign-in is only listed when you've actually typed your username and password to sign in. For example, if you've been signed in to your account for several weeks on your phone, checking your email from time to time, we'll only list the time and location of your initial sign-in." That's not the case for Gmail's account activity feature, which is not limited to the initial sign-ins.

In other related news, Google has a new security dashboard that shows information about your password, recovery options, notifications for unusual activity, 2-step verification and connected applications/sites.

{ Thanks, Florian K. and Herin. }

Helping passwords better protect you

Knowing how to stay safe and secure online is important, which is why we created our Good to Know site with advice and tips for safe and savvy Internet use. Starting today, we'll also be posting regularly with privacy and security tips. We hope this information helps you understand the choices and control that you have over your online information. -Ed.

It could be your Gmail, your photos or your documents—whatever you have in your Google Account, we work hard to make sure it’s protected from would-be identity thieves, other bad guys, or any illegitimate attempts to access your information.

But you can also help keep your information safe. Think of how upset you would be if someone else got access to your Google Account without your permission, and then take five minutes to follow the steps below and help make it more secure. Let’s start with the key to unlocking your account—your password:

1. Use a different password for each important service
Make sure you have a different password for every important online account you have. Bad guys will steal your username and password from one site, and then use them to try to log into lots of other sites where you might have an account. Even large, reputable sites sometimes have their password databases stolen. If you use the same password across many different sites, there’s a greater chance it might end up on a list of stolen passwords. And the more accounts you have that use that password, the more data you might lose if that password is stolen.

Giving an account its own, strong password helps protect you and your information in that account. Start today by making sure your Google Account has a unique password.

2. Make your password hard to guess
“password.” “123456.” “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” These examples are terrible passwords because everyone knows them—including potential attackers. Making your passwords longer or more complicated makes them harder to guess for both bad guys and people who know you. We know it’s hard: the average password is shorter than 8 characters, and many just contain letters. In a database of 32 million real passwords that were made public in 2009, analysis showed (PDF) only 54 percent included numbers, and only 3.7 percent had special characters like & or $.

One way to build a strong password is to think of a phrase or sentence that other people wouldn’t know and then use that to build your password. For example, for your email you could think of a personal message like “I want to get better at responding to emails quickly and concisely” and then build your password from numbers, symbols, and the first letters of each word—“iw2gb@r2eq&c”. Don’t use popular phrases or lyrics to build your password—research suggests that people gravitate to the same phrases, and you want your password to be something only you know.

Google doesn’t restrict password length, so go wild!

3. Keep your password somewhere safe
Research shows (PDF) that worrying about remembering too many passwords is the chief reason people reuse certain passwords across multiple services. But don’t worry—if you’ve created so many passwords that it’s hard to remember them, it’s OK to make a list and write them down. Just make sure you keep your list in a safe place, where you won’t lose it and others won’t be able to find it. If you’d prefer to manage your passwords digitally, a trusted password manager might be a good option. Chrome and many web browsers have free password managers built into them, and there are many independent options as well—take a few minutes to read through reviews and see what would be best for your needs.

4. Set a recovery option
Have you ever forgotten your password? Has one of your friends ever been locked out of their account? Setting a recovery option, like an alternate email address or a telephone number, helps give the service provider another way to contact you if you are ever locked out of your account. Having an up-to-date recovery phone or email address is the best thing you can do to make sure you can get back into your account fast if there is ever a problem.

If you haven’t set a recovery option for your Google Account, add one now. If you have, just take a second to make sure it’s up to date.

We have more tips on how to pick a good password on our Help Center, and in the video below:

Your online safety and privacy is important to you, and it’s important to us, too. We’ve made a huge amount of progress to help protect your Google Account from people who want to break into it, but for the time being, creating a unique, strong password is still an important way to protect your online accounts. Please take five minutes today to reset your important passwords using the tips above, and stay tuned for more security tips throughout the summer.

Posted by Diana Smetters, Software Engineer

An update on our war against account hijackers

Have you ever gotten a plea to wire money to a friend stranded at an international airport? An oddly written message from someone you haven’t heard from in ages? Compared to five years ago, more scams, illegal, fraudulent or spammy messages today come from someone you know. Although spam filters have become very powerful—in Gmail, less than 1 percent of spam emails make it into an inbox—these unwanted messages are much more likely to make it through if they come from someone you’ve been in contact with before. As a result, in 2010 spammers started changing their tactics—and we saw a large increase in fraudulent mail sent from Google Accounts. In turn, our security team has developed new ways to keep you safe, and dramatically reduced the amount of these messages.

Spammers’ new trick—hijacking accounts
To improve their chances of beating a spam filter by sending you spam from your contact’s account, the spammer first has to break into that account. This means many spammers are turning into account thieves. Every day, cyber criminals break into websites to steal databases of usernames and passwords—the online “keys” to accounts. They put the databases up for sale on the black market, or use them for their own nefarious purposes. Because many people re-use the same password across different accounts, stolen passwords from one site are often valid on others.

With stolen passwords in hand, attackers attempt to break into accounts across the web and across many different services. We’ve seen a single attacker using stolen passwords to attempt to break into a million different Google accounts every single day, for weeks at a time. A different gang attempted sign-ins at a rate of more than 100 accounts per second. Other services are often more vulnerable to this type of attack, but when someone tries to log into your Google Account, our security system does more than just check that a password is correct.

Legitimate accounts blocked for sending spam: Our security systems have dramatically reduced the number of Google Accounts used to send spam over the past few years

How Google Security helps protect your account
Every time you sign in to Google, whether via your web browser once a month or an email program that checks for new mail every five minutes, our system performs a complex risk analysis to determine how likely it is that the sign-in really comes from you. In fact, there are more than 120 variables that can factor into how a decision is made.

If a sign-in is deemed suspicious or risky for some reason—maybe it’s coming from a country oceans away from your last sign-in—we ask some simple questions about your account. For example, we may ask for the phone number associated with your account, or for the answer to your security question. These questions are normally hard for a hijacker to solve, but are easy for the real owner. Using security measures like these, we've dramatically reduced the number of compromised accounts by 99.7 percent since the peak of these hijacking attempts in 2011.

Help protect your account
While we do our best to keep spammers at bay, you can help protect your account by making sure you’re using a strong, unique password for your Google Account, upgrading your account to use 2-step verification, and updating the recovery options on your account such as your secondary email address and your phone number. Following these three steps can help prevent your account from being hijacked—this means less spam for your friends and contacts, and improved security and privacy for you.

Posted by Mike Hearn, Google Security Engineer

Safe Browsing—protecting web users for five years and counting

In this post, we've collected some highlights from the past five years of our Safe Browsing efforts, aimed at keeping people safe online. See the Security Blog for the full details and more visuals. -Ed.

Five years ago, we launched Safe Browsing, an initiative designed to keep people safe from malicious content online. Our primary goal was to safeguard Google's search results against malware (software capable of taking control of your computer) and phishing (fraudulent websites that entice users to give up their personal information). We also wanted to help educate webmasters on how to protect their own sites.

Malware and phishing are still big problems online, but our Safe Browsing team has labored continuously to adapt to the rising challenges of new threats. We've also developed an infrastructure that automatically detects harmful content around the globe.

Here’s a look at the highlights from our efforts over the past five years:

• We protect 600 million users through built-in protection for Chrome, Firefox and Safari, where we show several million security warnings every day to Internet users. When we detect malware or phishing, we trigger a red warning screen that discourages clicking through to the website. Our free and public Safe Browsing API allows other organizations to keep their users safe by using the data we’ve compiled.
• We find about 9,500 new malicious websites every day and show warnings to protect users. These are either innocent websites that have been compromised by malware authors, or others that are built specifically for malware distribution or phishing. Our detection techniques are highly accurate—we have had only a handful of false positives.
• Approximately 12-14 million Google Search queries per day warn users about current malware threats, and we provide malware warnings for about 300 thousand downloads per day through our download protection service for Chrome.
• We send thousands of notifications daily to webmasters. When webmasters sign up for Webmaster Tools we give them the option to receive warning notices if we find something malicious on their site.

Malware and phishing aren’t completely solvable problems because threats continue to evolve, but our technologies and processes do, too.

Phishing and malware trends
Online commerce sites are still favorite phishing targets because phishers are motivated by money. Some tried-and-true phishing methods are still used, but attacks are also getting more creative and sophisticated. Attacks are faster, with phishers sometimes remaining online for less than an hour to try to avoid detection. They’re also more geographically dispersed and are getting more targeted.

Malware authors often compromise legitimate sites to deliver content from a malicious attack site or to redirect to an attack site. These attack sites will often deliver "drive-by downloads" to visitors, which launch and run malware programs on their computers without their knowledge. To try to avoid detection, these attack sites adopt several techniques, such as rapidly changing their Internet location with free web hosting services and auto-generated domain names. Although less common than drive-by downloads, we’re also seeing more malware authors bypassing software vulnerabilities altogether and instead employing methods to try to trick users into installing malicious software—for example, fake anti-virus software.

How you can help prevent malware and phishing
Our system is designed to protect users at high volumes, but people still need to take steps to keep their computers safe. Ignoring a malware problem is never a good idea—if one of our warnings pop up, you should never click through to the suspicious site. Webmasters can help protect their visitors by signing up for malware warnings at Google Webmaster Tools. These warnings are free and will help us inform them if we find suspicious code on their sites. Finally, everyone can help make our system better. You can opt-in to send additional data to our team that helps us expand the coverage of Safe Browsing.

Looking forward
Some of our recent work to counter new forms of abuse includes:

• Instantaneous phishing detection and download protection within the Chrome browser
• Chrome extension malware scanning
• Android application protection

It’s a good feeling to know that we’re making the web more secure and directly protecting people from harm—whether they’re our users or not. We continue to invest heavily in the Safe Browsing team so we can defend against current and future security threats.

Posted by Niels Provos, Security Team

Tech tips that are Good to Know

Does this person sound familiar? He can’t be bothered to type a password into his phone every time he wants to play a game of Angry Birds. When he does need a password, maybe for his email or bank website, he chooses one that’s easy to remember like his sister’s name—and he uses the same one for each website he visits. For him, cookies come from the bakery, IP addresses are the locations of Intellectual Property and a correct Google search result is basically magic.

Most of us know someone like this. Technology can be confusing, and the industry often fails to explain clearly enough why digital literacy matters. So today in the U.S. we’re kicking off Good to Know, our biggest-ever consumer education campaign focused on making the web a safer, more comfortable place. Our ad campaign, which we introduced in the U.K. and Germany last fall, offers privacy and security tips: Use 2-step verification! Remember to lock your computer when you step away! Make sure your connection to a website is secure! It also explains some of the building blocks of the web like cookies and IP addresses. Keep an eye out for the ads in newspapers and magazines, online and in New York and Washington, D.C. subway stations.



The campaign and Good to Know website build on our commitment to keeping people safe online. We’ve created resources like privacy videos, the Google Security Center, the Family Safety Center and Teach Parents Tech to help you develop strong privacy and security habits. We design for privacy, building tools like Google Dashboard, Me on the Web, the Ads Preferences Manager and Google+ Circles—with more on the way.

We encourage you to take a few minutes to check out the Good to Know site, watch some of the videos, and be on the lookout for ads in your favorite newspaper or website. We hope you’ll learn something new about how to protect yourself online—tips that are always good to know!

Update Jan 17: Updated to include more background about Good to Know.

Posted by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering

Making search more secure

We’ve worked hard over the past few years to increase our services’ use of an encryption protocol called SSL, as well as encouraging the industry to adopt stronger security standards. For example, we made SSL the default setting in Gmail in January 2010 and introduced an encrypted search service located at https://encrypted.google.com four months later. Other prominent web companies have also added SSL support in recent months.

As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users. Over the next few weeks, many of you will find yourselves redirected to https://www.google.com (note the extra “s”) when you’re signed in to your Google Account. This change encrypts your search queries and Google’s results page. This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet cafe. You can also navigate to https://www.google.com directly if you’re signed out or if you don’t have a Google Account.

What does this mean for sites that receive clicks from Google search results? When you search from https://www.google.com, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won't receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools. This information helps webmasters keep more accurate statistics about their user traffic. If you choose to click on an ad appearing on our search results page, your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you.

As we continue to add more support for SSL across our products and services, we hope to see similar action from other websites. That’s why our researchers publish information about SSL and provide advice to help facilitate broader use of the protocol. We hope that today’s move to increase the privacy and security of your web searches is only the next step in a broader industry effort to employ SSL encryption more widely and effectively.

Posted by Evelyn Kao, Product Manager

National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2011: Our Shared Responsibility

(Cross-posted on the Public Policy Blog)

On the Internet, as with the offline world, the choices we make often have an impact on others. The links we share and the sites we visit can affect our security and sometimes introduce risk for people we know. Given how quickly our collective use of technology is evolving, it’s useful to periodically remind ourselves of practices that can help us achieve a more secure and enjoyable online experience.

This month, Google once again joins the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), government agencies, corporations, schools and non-profit organizations in recognizing National Cyber Security Awareness Month. It’s a time for us to offer education that increases online security for everyone.

It’s fitting that the theme of this year’s Cyber Security Awareness Month is “Our Shared Responsibility.” With ever-increasing ways to access the web and share information, we need to focus on keeping our activities secure. In that spirit, and to help kick off Cyber Security Awareness Month, we’re introducing a new Google Security Center. The Security Center is full of practical tips and information to help people stay safe online, from choosing a secure password to using 2-step verification and avoiding phishing sites and malware.

We also continue to develop products and services that help people protect their information online. Examples that have stood out so far this year include the Chromebook, 2-step verification in 40 languages, and Chrome browser warnings for malicious downloads and out-of-date plugins, among others. We develop free products and tools such as DOM Snitch, a Chrome extension that helps developers identify insecure code.

We recognize the importance of security education and are committed to helping make your online experience both exciting and safe to use. We all have a responsibility to take steps to protect ourselves and together develop a culture of security. We encourage everyone to Stop. Think. Connect.

Posted by Eric Davis, Public Policy Manager, Security

2-step verification: stay safe around the world in 40 languages

(Cross-posted on the Online Security Blog)

Earlier this year, we introduced a security feature called 2-step verification that helps protect your Google Account from threats like password compromise and identity theft. By entering a one-time verification code from your phone after you type your password, you can make it much tougher for an unauthorized person to gain access to your account.

People have told us how much they like the feature, which is why we're thrilled to offer 2-step verification in 40 languages and in more than 150 countries. There’s never been a better time to set it up: Examples in the news of password theft and data breaches constantly remind us to stay on our toes and take advantage of tools to properly secure our valuable online information. Email, social networking and other online accounts still get compromised today, but 2-step verification cuts those risks significantly.

We recommend investing some time in keeping your information safe by watching our 2-step verification video to learn how to quickly increase your Google Account’s resistance to common problems like reused passwords and malware and phishing scams. Wherever you are in the world, sign up for 2-step verification and help keep yourself one step ahead of the bad guys.

To learn more about online safety tips and resources, visit our ongoing security blog series, and review a couple of simple tips and tricks for online security. Also, watch our video about five easy ways to help you stay safe and secure as you browse.

Update on 12/1/11: We recently made 2-step verification available for users in even more places, including Iran, Japan, Liberia, Myanmar (Burma), Sudan and Syria. This enhanced security feature for Google Accounts is now available in more than 175 countries.

Posted by Nishit Shah, Product Manager, Google Security

Google's Yellow Malware Warning Box

Google started to show a yellow warning box at the top of the search results pages if the computer is likely to be infected with malware that changes Web pages, inserts ads and sends users to other pages to download more malware.


"Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software (...) that causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through a small number of intermediary servers called proxies," explains Google.

Showing a warning message is not a foolproof idea, since malicious software could easily remove it or use it to install more malware. Google links to a page titled "Your computer appears to be infected", which suggests to install an antivirus software and perform a system scan. The page doesn't suggest to install a different operating system or to buy a Chromebook.

"Some forms of malicious software will alter your computer settings to redirect some or all of your traffic through a proxy controlled by the attacker. When you use Google, the proxy forwards your query to the real Google servers to fetch the search results. If our system detects that a search came through one of these proxies, we display the warning," informs Google.

{ Thanks, Herin. }

Using data to protect people from malware

(Cross-posted on the Google Online Security Blog)

The Internet brings remarkable benefits to society. Unfortunately, some people use it for harm and their own gain at the expense of others. We believe in the power of the web and information, and we work every day to detect potential abuse of our services and ward off attacks.

As we work to protect our users and their information, we sometimes discover unusual patterns of activity. Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or “malware.” As a result of this discovery, today some people will see a prominent notification at the top of their Google web search results:

This particular malware causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through a small number of intermediary servers called “proxies.” We hope that by taking steps to notify users whose traffic is coming through these proxies, we can help them update their antivirus software and remove the infections.

We hope to use the knowledge we’ve gathered to assist as many people as possible. In case our notice doesn’t reach everyone directly, you can run a system scan on your computer yourself by following the steps in our Help Center article.

Update July 20, 2011: We've seen a few common questions we thought we'd address here:

• The malware appears to have gotten onto users' computers from one of roughly a hundred variants of fake antivirus, or "fake AV" software that has been in circulation for a while. We aren't aware of a common name for the malware.
• We believe a couple million machines are affected by this malware.
• We've heard from a number of you that you're thinking about the potential for an attacker to copy our notice and attempt to point users to a dangerous site instead. It's a good security practice to be cautious about the links you click, so the spirit of those comments is spot-on. We thought about this, too, which is why the notice appears only at the top of our search results page. Falsifying the message on this page would require prior compromise of that computer, so the notice is not a risk to additional users.
• In the meantime, we've been able to successfully warn hundreds of thousands of users that their computer is infected. These are people who otherwise may never have known.

Posted by Damian Menscher, Security Engineer

Ensuring your information is safe online

The Internet has been an amazing force for good in the world—opening up communications, boosting economic growth and promoting free expression. But like all technologies, it can also be used for bad things. Today, despite the efforts of Internet companies and the security community, identity theft, fraud and the hijacking of people’s email accounts are common problems online.

Bad actors take advantage of the fact that most people aren’t that tech savvy—hijacking accounts by using malware and phishing scams that trick users into sharing their passwords, or by using passwords obtained by hacking other websites. Most account hijackings are not very targeted; they are designed to steal identities, acquire financial data or send spam. But some attacks are targeted at specific individuals.

Through the strength of our cloud-based security and abuse detection systems*, we recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.

The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings. (Gmail enables you to forward your emails automatically, as well as grant others access to your account.)

Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities.

It’s important to stress that our internal systems have not been affected—these account hijackings were not the result of a security problem with Gmail itself. But we believe that being open about these security issues helps users better protect their information online.

Here are some ways to improve your security when using Google products:

• Enable 2-step verification. This Gmail feature uses a phone and second password on sign-in, and it protected some accounts from this attack. So check out this video on setting up 2-step verification.

• Use a strong password for Google that you do not use on any other site. Here’s a video to help.
• Enter your password only into a proper sign-in prompt on a https://www.google.com domain. We will never ask you to email your password or enter it into a form that appears within an email message. Here’s a video with more advice.
• Check your Gmail settings for suspicious forwarding addresses (“Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab, Fig. 1) or delegated accounts (“Accounts” tab, Fig. 2).

Fig. 1

 Fig. 2

• Watch for the red warnings about suspicious account activity that may appear on top of your Gmail inbox.
• Review the security features offered by the Chrome browser. If you don’t already use Chrome, consider switching your browser to Chrome.
• Explore other security recommendations and a video with tips on how to stay safe across the web.

Please spend ten minutes today taking steps to improve your online security so that you can experience all that the Internet offers—while also protecting your data.

*We also relied on user reports and this external report to uncover the campaign described.

Posted by Eric Grosse, Engineering Director, Google Security Team

Advanced sign-in security for your Google account

(Cross-posted on the Gmail Blog)

Has anyone you know ever lost control of an email account and inadvertently sent spam—or worse—to their friends and family? There are plenty of examples (like the classic "Mugged in London" scam) that demonstrate why it's important to take steps to help secure your activities online. Your Gmail account, your photos, your private documents—if you reuse the same password on multiple sites and one of those sites gets hacked, or your password is conned out of you directly through a phishing scam, it can be used to access some of your most closely-held information.

Most of us are used to entrusting our information to a password, but we know that some of you are looking for something stronger. As we announced to our Google Apps customers a few months ago, we've developed an advanced opt-in security feature called 2-step verification that makes your Google Account significantly more secure by helping to verify that you're the real owner of your account. Now it's time to offer the same advanced protection to all of our users.

2-step verification requires two independent factors for authentication, much like you might see on your banking website: your password, plus a code obtained using your phone. Over the next few days, you'll see a new link on your Account Settings page that looks like this:

Take your time to carefully set up 2-step verification—we expect it may take up to 15 minutes to enroll. A user-friendly set-up wizard will guide you through the process, including setting up a backup phone and creating backup codes in case you lose access to your primary phone. Once you enable 2-step verification, you'll see an extra page that prompts you for a code when you sign in to your account. After entering your password, Google will call you with the code, send you an SMS message or give you the choice to generate the code for yourself using a mobile application on your Android, BlackBerry or iPhone device. The choice is up to you. When you enter this code after correctly submitting your password we'll have a pretty good idea that the person signing in is actually you.

It's an extra step, but it's one that significantly improves the security of your Google Account because it requires the powerful combination of both something you know—your username and password—and something that only you should have—your phone. A hacker would need access to both of these factors to gain access to your account. If you like, you can always choose a "Remember verification for this computer for 30 days" option, and you won't need to re-enter a code for another 30 days. You can also set up one-time application-specific passwords to sign in to your account from non-browser based applications that are designed to only ask for a password, and cannot prompt for the code.

To learn more about 2-step verification and get started, visit our Help Center. And for more about staying safe online, see our ongoing security blog series or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/. Be safe!

Update Dec 7, 2011: Updated the screenshots in this post.

Posted by Nishit Shah, Product Manager, Google Security

National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2010: Stop. Think. Connect.

Governments, industry and everyday people have been abuzz this year about online security to a larger extent than ever before. People are talking about their information, how they share it with others and how they secure it. With more information moving online, and with cyber attacks on the rise, we think it’s important that we keep the conversation about security flowing.

Google has renewed its commitment to security this year and has pushed industry boundaries to help people better protect their information in new ways. Here are just a few examples: We became the first major email provider to offer default HTTPS encryption for the entire email session, and we introduced an encrypted search option for Google.com. We designed a new system to make Google Accounts more secure, and added suspicious activity detection for our users. Google Apps became the first suite of cloud computing applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification from the U.S. government. We also published new security products, tools and research to help web developers and network administrators make the rest of the web more secure.


I sit on the board of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) to promote work that encourages safer online habits. Together with that organization, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a host of other companies, Google is taking the month of October to recognize National Cyber Security Awareness Month. As we did in a blog post series last year, we’ll explore simple ways that people can make use of Google’s technologies and tools, as well other freely available resources and advice, to better protect themselves and their information.

We will post links here throughout the month, so be sure to check back often:

Tips and Tricks: Sharing Google Docs Like a Pro
Protect your data in the cloud
This Internet is Your Internet: Digital Citizenship from California to Washtenaw County

Understanding the omnibox for better security (Google Chrome Blog)

Safe browsing on Blogger

Stop. Think. Connect. To protect yourself from fake Checkout invoices.

Tips for a more secure orkut experience

Remember these tips for safer shopping

Remember, even with so many people and groups focused on creating a safer web experience for everyone, we all have a responsibility to take steps to protect ourselves online. The NCSA recommends that we keep our wits about us and think carefully about our online actions before we take them. In that spirit, we encourage you to: Stop. Think. Connect.


Posted by Eric Davis, Public Policy Manager, Security

Three million businesses have gone Google: celebrating growth, innovation and security

Today we’re hosting more than 300 CIOs and IT professionals from around the world in Paris at Google Atmosphere, our annual European event dedicated to cloud computing—web-based applications that are built on shared infrastructure and delivered through the browser. This year, the discussion at Atmosphere is focused on how companies can benefit from the breakthroughs in productivity and security that cloud-based applications are uniquely capable of delivering.

This event also marks some major milestones:

• As of today, more than 3 million businesses have gone Google, and over 30 million users within businesses, schools and organizations now depend on our messaging and collaboration tools.
• We’re launching new cloud-powered capabilities: two-step verification to help enhance security and soon, mobile editing in Google Docs on Android and the iPad™.

First, Google Apps Premier, Education and Government Edition administrators can now have users sign in with the combination of their password (something they know) and a one-time verification code provided by a mobile phone (something they have). Users can continue to access Google Apps from Internet-connected devices, but with stronger protections to help fend off risks like phishing scams and password reuse. For the first time, we’re making this technology accessible to organizations large and small without the costs and complexities that have historically limited two-step verification to large enterprises with deep pockets. Furthermore, in the coming months, Standard Edition and hundreds of millions of individual Google users will be able to enjoy this feature as well.


Second, today we demonstrated new mobile editing capabilities for Google Docs on the Android platform and the iPad. In the next few weeks, co-workers around the world will soon be able to co-edit files simultaneously from an even wider array of devices.

Only cloud computing is able to deliver the whole package of productivity-enhancing collaboration, superior reliability and virtually unlimited scale at a price that’s affordable for any size organization. Our Atmosphere event is a nice opportunity to step back and fully appreciate the power of the cloud with customers and future customers alike.

Posted by Dave Girouard, President, Google Enterprise