Making the web safer
Our security team built Safe Browsing to identify unsafe websites and notify users and webmasters so they can protect themselves from harm. By providing details about the threats we detect and the warnings we show, we hope to shine some light on the state of web security and encourage safer web security practices.
Approximately one billion people use Google Safe Browsing. We help tens of millions of people every week protect themselves from harm by showing warnings to users of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari when they attempt to navigate to websites that would steal their personal information or install software designed to take over their computers.
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Users who see browser warnings per week
Warnings appear when a user navigates to a site we have identified as unsafe or downloads malicious software.
We show warnings in Google Search results if a listed website could harm a person’s computer.
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Malware Warnings in Search
Number of Google search results per week that contain a warning about threats to users.
Unsafe websites
Google’s Safe Browsing technology examines billions of URLs per day looking for unsafe websites. Every day, we discover thousands of new unsafe sites, many of which are legitimate websites that have been compromised. When we detect unsafe sites, we show warnings on Google Search and in web browsers.
These unsafe sites fall into two categories, both of which threaten users’ privacy and security:
- Malware sites contain code to install malicious software onto users’ computers. Hackers can use this software to capture and transmit users' private or sensitive information.
- Phishing sites pretend to be legitimate while trying to trick users into typing in their username and password or sharing other private information. Common examples are web pages that impersonate legitimate bank websites or online stores.
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Understanding malware
Malware sites install malicious software on users’ machines to steal private information, perform identity theft, or attack other computers. When people visit these sites, software that takes over their computer is downloaded without their knowledge.
Attack sites are used by hackers to intentionally host and distribute malicious software.
Compromised sites are legitimate sites that are hacked to include content from attack sites.
View per-country malware information.
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Notifying webmasters
Safe Browsing alerts webmasters if their sites have been hacked and provides information to help clean up the problem. We detail the steps to recover from an infection, and provide webmasters with examples of the specific code that has been injected into their site. To take advantage of these services, webmasters can register for Google Webmaster Tools for free.
Webmaster response time
We measure how quickly webmasters clean up their sites after receiving notifications
that their site has been compromised.
Webmaster reinfection rate
Even after a site has been cleaned, it can become reinfected if an underlying
vulnerability remains. We measure the reinfection rate for these sites.
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Hackers compromise sites in a variety of ways, which can make the cleanup process challenging. Check out our series of videos that describes malware infections and the cleanup process.