Google has announced a brand new malware warning system that alerts its users to the possibility of a malware infection of their device.
Google said it had taken this measure after the search giant unearthed a pattern of unusual activity across the Internet that it had identified as a new strain of malware that causes infected devices to send traffic to Google via proxy servers.
“Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers,” Damian Menscher, a Google security engineer, said in a Google blog post. “After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or ‘malware.’”
According to Matt Cutts of Google, the malware only affects Windows powered computers. Google said that by notifying users of possible infections, they update their antivirus software to remove any infections.
For more information on the new malware alert see the official blog post, or visit the Google Help Center for general security tips.