Report Highlights Risky Search Phrases

By Geoff Duncan May 12, 2006

A new study from SiteAdvisor (recently acquired by McAfee) finds that searching for common words and phrases in popular Internet search engines can lead users to risky and unsafe Internet sites which may contain spyware, adware, or attempt to take advantage of other security loopholes to take over users’ computers or compromise their personal information.

“Search engines clearly play a critical role in Internet use: As aconvenient starting point for online browsing, they’re estimated to accountfor about half of all site visits,” said Chris Dixon, who heads the McAfeeSiteAdvisor product team. “But economically motivated purveyors of spam,adware and other online problems quickly follow where consumers go online,in this case directly to search engine results. Today, based on browsingtrends, we estimate that U.S. Internet users make 285 million clicks tohostile sites every month through search queries.”

The study was conducted from January to April 2005 and analyzed the results returned by five major search engines

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