Google Opens Up Malware Data, Shows US As Cyber Criminal Paradise

Google has added a security element to its transparency reports, bringing in data on sites hosting malware, which is currently showing the US hosts much of the world’s cyber criminal activity.

Using information from its Safe Browsing scanner, Google has detailed where malicious sites are based and how many it has found in total. In the UK, five percent of the 326,201 sites scanned are hosting malware, according to the latest figures.

Google malware figures

That’s less than many nations, including France, Germany and Russia. The US has by far the most with 284,533 malicious sites out of the 14.2 million scanned, although Google does not have as much insight into certain countries, such as China.

Google has also released limited data on the number of phishing sites, showing that in the week ending 16 June, it detected 25,949 websites attempting to dupe people into handing over information such as login details.

“You can now learn how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted around the world, how quickly websites become reinfected after their owners clean malware from their sites, and other tidbits we’ve surfaced,” said Lucas Ballard, Google software engineer, in a blog post.

“Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services.”

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