Google: Entire web may harm your computer
Millions of web users were unable to access sites on 31 Jan after a goon at Google accidentally marked the ENTIRE internet not safe.
The Google worker who was responsible for maintaining a list of sites which are known to install malicious software onto computers mistakenly entered the URL of '/'
The problem with this is that '/' expands to all URLs, leaving every site on the internet - including Google's own - marked as unsafe.
This meant ALL search results said 'This site may harm your computer' and would not allow people to navigate to their desired page ... and gave Yahoo a bit of a boost.
The 55 minute outage between 6:30am PST and 7:25am is though to have affected millions of users.
Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products for Google said on the Google Blog: "What happened? Very simply, human error.
"Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously.
"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."
Links:
Google Blog
Millions of web users were unable to access sites on 31 Jan after a goon at Google accidentally marked the ENTIRE internet not safe.
The Google worker who was responsible for maintaining a list of sites which are known to install malicious software onto computers mistakenly entered the URL of '/'
The problem with this is that '/' expands to all URLs, leaving every site on the internet - including Google's own - marked as unsafe.
This meant ALL search results said 'This site may harm your computer' and would not allow people to navigate to their desired page ... and gave Yahoo a bit of a boost.
The 55 minute outage between 6:30am PST and 7:25am is though to have affected millions of users.
Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products for Google said on the Google Blog: "What happened? Very simply, human error.
"Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously.
"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."
Links:
Google Blog
