HardwareZone Malware

It looks like Chrome has decided today that HardwareZone site contains malware, and presented me with this warning when I was trying to access the site. Details on the Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic page indicate that 3 pages were found to have caused malicious content to be downloaded and installed without user’s consent. I just wonder how many users will really heed the warning and avoid HardwareZone?

All these protection tools are nice. But ultimately, what’s most important is that the operating environment is secure, and that users are properly educated about IT security. I really don’t know how helpful this Google Safe Browsing really is. But quite clearly warnings about invalid SSL certificates are often routinely ignored by users. People want to visit their website. They don’t want to care about the technical hinderances.

Back to HardwareZone. I didn’t go find out where the malware is. I imagined it is probably something snuck in by a bad guy through a forum posting. In practice, these things are getting increasingly more troublesome to handle because of the interactivity of the web we use today. However, Google Safe Browsing Diagnostics say the problem is with sites.hardwarezone.com. A cursory glance just shows it mostly hosting advertisements, CSS files, images, etc. I wonder, what could be wrong with the site.