Microsoft has added new features for users of its Bing search engine, warning them if sites in their search results could be possible malware or phishing locations.
In a blog post, Microsoft stated:
The trick to fishing is making the fly float through the air as if it were alive. Done right and the hungry trout eyeballing the fly is convinced to take the bait. It is not a coincidence that criminal activity shares a similar name: phishing. The bait are fake websites designed to look and feel like the legitimate ones. These sites catch people by taking advantage of a user's trust in entering information such as passwords, usernames, and credit cards.Bing has refined the generic warning to specifically call out this threat. When users click a URL suspected of phishing, a warning will appear. This looks similar to the generic warning except it now warns that the site might steal personal information
In terms of sites that might link to malware, Microsoft says:
Sites might not always be malicious; however, they might link to malicious binaries. While safe to load into the browser, there is a hidden bomb waiting to be clicked. In contrast, some hacked pages cause infections just by visiting them. The generic warning is now refined to specifically call out pages (likely) safe to visit as long as links are not clicked.
In addition, webmasters can now go to the Bing dashboard to find the binaries and links on their sites that are causing the malware warning to be posted so they can remove them.
