Google Alerts trojan alert

I use Google Alerts to harvest references to Cambridge and Leamington – the Waikato New Zealand versions. I am looking for websites and blogs actively mentioning these names. Fine – it seems to work – well, sort of. Perhaps it is just the names I have chosen – returns appear quite random – websites and blogs about the Cambridge area in the central Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island appear fairly static – either that or people rarely refer to their location when writing. Perhaps Google Alerts is not all it is cracked up to be. Last night this arrived.

Google Blogs Alert for: “Cambridge NZ”

kansas city ks school district cornelia connelly high school school half terms 2006 richland school district shafter high musical school reddam house school south africa bju press homeschool st peters school cambridge.

24 March 2009 20:17

This Alert contained a link, or links, to the JS.Downloader trojan [Threat Containment: Easy, Removal: Easy – according to Symantec.com]. The problem is not Google Alerts but it is Google Alerts that delivered it to my inbox. The Alert is a list of schools holding school musicals. The list will have started out life as a legitimate human generated one – but has been hi-jacked – morphed into robo bulletin boards and blogs– then picked up by Google Alerts. The experience was scary and the first major security ‘breach’ I have experienced.

Maybe Twitter is better. And

Update: This conversation; similar but different. Be careful.