Google toolbar 404s

[brokaddr]

I've been seeing an influx of these type of 404s in my logs:
Page Hit:
http://example.com/url(res://C:/Program%20Files/Google/Google%20Toolbar/Component/GoogleToolbarDynamic_mui_en_[removed]

There were seemingly random letters/numbers where I added [removed], in case these digits are unique to my site.

The only info I've been able to uncover online about this is a virus? Is it a BOT virus, or do many of my visitors have the same infection?

What else could this be, and what is it used for?

[tedster]

Well, it's not impossible that this is some kind of exploit - but I think there may be another explanation having to do with the toolbar, or even with IE. I'm assuming these are IE users, right?

The thing that jumps out is that there is a reference to a local file - a file on the C: drive. But why a lot of people would use the Google Toolbar to look for a local file is a bit beyond my imagination right now.

I noticed that several websites that leave their 404 error logs open for search engines these are .gov and .edu domains) are also showing a similar kind of 404 error.

[dstiles]

I've seen several of these in my logs, all returning a 404. They mostly referred to an image "findy_buttons.png". The googletoolbardynamic_mui is the stem name of a DLL.

The url(res:... part is internal protocol which could be due to a virus on the machine but my GUESS is it's a mistake, probably google's in one of their toolbars. To tell anyone on a web site the path of a DLL (which this is doing) is dangerous if you hit a nasty site.

There is a thread in the website analytics forum on this, begun Oct-26.