Was Google hacked today (Jan 31,2009) ?

by cricfever | January 31, 2009 at 07:32 am

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Reports came from all around that people were having issues searching on Google. No matter whatever you type on "Google", it responded back saying - "This site may be harm your computer" as shown in the attached screenshot.

Seems like Google has sorted it our very quickly, but everybody would be curious to know what caused this Glitch???

Source:www.cricfever.com

Updates from Techcrunch.com :

Update: it seems to be fixing itself. I’m having no more issues on Google Belgium, still getting warning messages for malicious software when I search Google.com. Also, it only seems to occur when you’re searching as a signed-in user now.

Update 2: it seems to be fine now. Lasted about 15 minutes. You can take a deep breath now and go on with whatever you were doing before

Now we just have to wait for Google to tell us what went wrong. It’s quite clear that a meltdown of this size, no matter how short it was, will be the topic of discussion for the coming days (and not only at the Googleplex, I’d wager).

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Jordan Yerman

at 08:04 on January 31st, 2009

I can't seem to replicate that...

Likely just a display error, applying the warning to all results.

Jordan Yerman

at 08:06 on January 31st, 2009

Yeah, it's an error on Google's part, and not a hack. The error lasted for about fifteen minutes.

Coincidentally, I was reviewing the diagnostics page just yesterday for a site that had been infected by malware. The diagnostics page identified the origin of the malware that Google spotted on the server it was warning about. I wonder what, if anything, Google is saying about all these allegedly infected sites this morning... especially since Google is warning about its own site as well, if your search encompasses one of Google's own pages.

Something, I think, is amiss in Mountain View...

Technology isn't perfect, nor is it seamless magic. Things go wrong and things break. Life is like that sometimes.

Google-boy (not verified)

at 09:02 on January 31st, 2009

there was no Google search for about 15 minutes probably aliens trying to take over Google HQ? And Google want us to trust them with our data on line and had it happened to that, it would have cost millions of dollars!

15 minutes without Google search was like the end of the world!

Twitter was first to report with thousands of Twits in a couple of minutes!

anarkissed

at 10:19 on January 31st, 2009

This report from CNet explains all
snippet:

For a short time this morning, Google listed every site on the Internet as malware.

According to TechCrunch, every site found via Google search worldwide was flagged with this message: "This site may harm your computer."

Twitter was awash in the news this morning, with thousands of people posting about their kindred experienceswith Google search.

Marissa Mayer, Google vice president of search products & user experience, attributed the problem to "human error"

[snipped some more]

. StopBadware carefully researches each consumer complaint to decide fairly whether that URL belongs on the list. Since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms.

We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes.

Go to CNet to read the whole article http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10153942-92.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Amy Judd

at 14:15 on January 31st, 2009

Wow, I've never heard of anything like this happening before - crazy!

cricfever

at 14:25 on January 31st, 2009

Thanks anarkissed..

Seriously never heard of anything like this before...Google made us feel like we still are not technologically advanced so far to handle these simple so called "human-errors".

What happened to all those good old software engineering processes?? How come the patches/updates were applied to the production servers before being properly tested on staging servers or something?

"Cloud computing" I guess :(

freooguy

at 14:38 on January 31st, 2009

there is more info to the story go to (www.googleblog.blogspot.com) any more problems with it go to (www.stopbadware.org).

have a great day

A. Tran

at 14:49 on January 31st, 2009

I saw the error message "this site may harm your computer" when I was looking for a restaurant this morning, but it also showed the URL, which I copied, typed it in and I found what I needed. I didn't think it was a hack though, more like a glitch.

Technology breaks and it takes humans to fix these errors just as occasionally, humans can create some of these errors too.

duo

at 15:01 on January 31st, 2009

Thank you for the useful information in your article. I did not get that error message, and I have been on Google all day - at least I think I have been. I never know when I am working with an actual site or the fake web pages that my computer stalkers put on my screen, actually. LOOK FOR COCHRAN FIRM FRAUD 3 LATER TODAY OR TOMORROW FOR PROOF.

In any case, I am not surprised if Google is having difficulty. I can go to other big-time search companies, and not get half the choices of links for any given subject as Google gives, especially when searching for an article I wrote or researching the subject matter I often explore in my browser - prison profiteering, government and police corruption, prisoner abuse, organized crime among respected persons, etc. Google gives uncesored browsing, so naturally, it is having difficulties. Most uncensored people and firms are or will have increasing problems with their technology, I think. People know that to control information an communication is to be in CONTROL. See more here: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1031368

Mary Neal http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Willingham (not verified)

at 15:49 on January 31st, 2009

Simply amazing that a single slip of the figure can cause such a significant proble globally.

Fripouille

at 16:17 on January 31st, 2009

Just for info for you IT people, I got the same message here in France. It lasted just over half an hour.....and it loused up my 'Petula Clark' search!! :-)

(This comment will not harm your computer).

René

at 17:02 on January 31st, 2009

Google Flagged the Entire Internet as Malware. and no it wasn't hacked.

Marissa Mayer has now explained the error on the Official Google Blog. She puts it down to human error after a ‘/’ was mistakenly put in an update sent from the non-profit StopBadware.org to Google (the non-profit also posted more details). The result was every URL in Google’s database being classified as “malware” until the stray ‘/’ was removed.

Here’s the official post from Mayer below:

If you did a Google search between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST this morning, you likely saw that the message “This site may harm your computer” accompanied each and every search result.