Over 750,000 Web Hijacking Incidents Tracked By Google in One Year

[engine]

Google's study shows that it tracked 760,935 hijacking incidents during July, 2014 - June, 2015 via its Safe Browsing and Search Quality programs.

This is a huge number of incidents!

One of the issues the study goes into is how well the incidents were managed, and 80% of cases were cleaned up after the first alert from Google. Surprisingly, it indicates that although the site was cleaned up, the root cause is not addresses by as many as 12% of the sites getting hit again within 30-days of the initial incident.

Here's the full study, in the form a PDF.

[static.googleusercontent.com...]

[smilie]

How about Google Images hijacking everyone's images?

Hypocrites.

Popcorn.

[tangor]

This is news? Gotta ask, what took so long? (NOTE: Irony and Satire)

[keyplyr]

80% of cases were cleaned up after the first alert from Google

What form does this "Google alert" come in? Does Google send an email saying our web site has been hijacked? A message in Google Search Console?

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The detection and notification follows the route from Safe Browsing and Search Quality each detecting and flagging hijacked websites. Safe Browsing shows a browser interstitial and emails WHOIS admins, while both Safe Browsing and Search Quality flag URLs in Google Search with a warning message. If the site’s owner has a Search Console account there's a direct notification alerts to the webmaster of the ongoing incident.

What this goes to prove is a couple of things. Hijacking is rife, and, importantly, once the hack is removed, steps should be taken to ensure the site's not hijacked again.