AMDave
03-07-2014, 10:10 PM
False Google malware alert
Earlier today Google's Chrome browser started blocking access to some forum posts on PrimeGrid's website. Most importantly, there is no malware at PrimeGrid and it is 100% safe to access our website. What happened is not specific to PrimeGrid, and in fact isn't specific to BOINC. This false report likely affected numerous tech forums across the entire Internet. Many people use CPU-Z to monitor their computers, and also use their "validation" system to register and show off their computers. The website used by CPU-Z for this validation is "valid [dot] canardpc [dot] com" and that's the website that Google thinks is malicious. (I don't actually know if it is or not. I suspect it's fine.) Because many people put a link to their CPU-Z validations in either their signatures or in posts, any forum webpage with such a link now gets blocked by Google as malicious. Just to be perfectly clear, even if CPU-Z's website WAS malicious, merely viewing the PrimeGrid forum pages would not pose any risk. While researching this problem on the web, I discovered that this is not the first time CPU-Z has been erroneously flagged by Google as being malicious. It's therefore reasonable to expect that it also won't be the last. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, effective immediately links or references to the CPU-Z validation site are prohibited in both forum posts and in signatures. The server will automatically remove posts or signatures that reference valid [dot] canardpc [dot] com. Four signatures and a handful of posts had to be removed.
More... (http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=5565)
Earlier today Google's Chrome browser started blocking access to some forum posts on PrimeGrid's website. Most importantly, there is no malware at PrimeGrid and it is 100% safe to access our website. What happened is not specific to PrimeGrid, and in fact isn't specific to BOINC. This false report likely affected numerous tech forums across the entire Internet. Many people use CPU-Z to monitor their computers, and also use their "validation" system to register and show off their computers. The website used by CPU-Z for this validation is "valid [dot] canardpc [dot] com" and that's the website that Google thinks is malicious. (I don't actually know if it is or not. I suspect it's fine.) Because many people put a link to their CPU-Z validations in either their signatures or in posts, any forum webpage with such a link now gets blocked by Google as malicious. Just to be perfectly clear, even if CPU-Z's website WAS malicious, merely viewing the PrimeGrid forum pages would not pose any risk. While researching this problem on the web, I discovered that this is not the first time CPU-Z has been erroneously flagged by Google as being malicious. It's therefore reasonable to expect that it also won't be the last. In order to prevent this from happening in the future, effective immediately links or references to the CPU-Z validation site are prohibited in both forum posts and in signatures. The server will automatically remove posts or signatures that reference valid [dot] canardpc [dot] com. Four signatures and a handful of posts had to be removed.
More... (http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=5565)