Tech

Google boosts network Safe Browsing with malware, social engineering alerts

Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators is being upgraded with useful information for IT specialists.

Written by Charlie Osborne, Contributing Writer April 7, 2016 at 1:53 a.m. PT

Google has announced an upgrade for Safe Browsing Alerts which adds information on additional threats to help network administrators protect their users.

Network administrators have shouldered a heavy task. In today's world, cyberattacks and threats are increasing in sophistication, the range of dangers has increased exponentially, and IT staff are faced with the challenge of protecting corporate networks -- often holding valuable business and customer data -- as best they can.

It's no simple task, and employees need all the investment and help they can have.

Google is one such company to provide tools and systems for network admins, including the Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators tool. Launched five years ago, the tool works in a similar way to Safe Browsing by warning administrators when potentially harmful URLs are discovered on their networks.

Security

In a blog post on Wednesday, Google software engineer Nav Jagpal said that since the tool's launch, over 22,000 Autonomous System Number (ASN) networks are being monitored and 1,300 network administrators are actively using Google's software.

In addition, approximately 250 reports are sent daily to these users.

While there is still more work to be done to increase adoption rates, Google is still investing time and energy in the monitoring system with a fresh upgrade. Jagpal said that "to provide network admins with even more useful information for protecting their users," the tech giant has now added additional data on potentially harmful links.

Google now shares a wider range of data with network admins, including URLs believed to be compromised pages which harm users through drive-by downloads or exploits, domains which serve malicious content, malicious URLs related to unwanted software -- such as adware and nuisance downloads -- malware download sources and social engineering such as links sent via phishing domains.

"Network administrators can use the data provided by our service to gain insights into the security and quality of their network," Jagpal says. "By working together, we can make it more challenging and expensive for attackers to profit from user harm."

Network administrators interested in trying out the tool can register their networks here.