Industry News Home More stories like this... RSS Feed

Google warns of Jackson malware attack

The death of the King of Pop Michael Jackson has resulted in Google triggering an alert over a potential malware attack that could be launched off the back of the news.

As reports of Jackson's hospitalisation began to circle on the internet, people searching Google News were presented with a message stating "We're sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application".

Users were asked to enter a Captcha code in order to continue with their search.

A spokesperson from Google told ZDNet: "When you get huge volumes of searches, an interstitial page comes up to make sure we aren't coming under attack."

"The volumes searching for Michael Jackson during the night were such that a page did come up, and it slowed things down for a short period," they added.

The spokesperson described the increase in volume as volcanic.

Earlier this week, spammers and malware distributors were using the recent Air France crash to peddle their malicious code.

Anti spyware - Anti spyware software that cleans and protects your home and small-office computers and networks. Visit www.pctools.com to upgrade your protection