Google fingered as major source of Badware

Google is one of the worst offenders when it comes to hosting according to research from a Google-sponsored site.

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Internet consumer advocacy group Stopbadware.org has released data on "badware" websites saying that Google was one of the top five networks responsible for hosting dangerous sites.

The numbers show that China is now a top source of malicious websites - China-based networks hosted more than half of the malicious web sites tracked by the group - but Google's appearance on the list is perhaps more remarkable. Google is a sponsor of Stopbadware.org, and it is the company that provides the raw data that is analysed by the group.

A year ago, Google did not appear on Stopbadware.org's list of the top 10 sources of badware, but recently scammers and online criminals have turned to Google's Blogger service to host malicious or spyware-related web pages, security experts say.

"Because it's free and because it's on a blog and you can post links to whatever you like, people have found ways to take advantage of this and create large numbers of free blogs that have bad links on them and in some cases even bad code," said Maxim Weinstein, manager of Stopbadware.org.

In March, Google was the top badware network tracked by Stopbadware. These latest numbers were compiled at the end of May.