Google releases new data on hacker websites

The new section of the Transparency Report will offer data on the number of users that see warnings from Google’s “Safe Browsing” program each week, where malicious sites are based globally, and how quickly websites get re-infected with malware after being sanitized.

“Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services,” Lucas Ballard, a software engineer at Google said in a company blog post.

On Jun. 16, Google found that more than 88 million users received warnings from its “Safe Browsing” program about malicious sites. By comparison, more than 54 million people were given warnings about malicious sites during the same time period a year ago. The data in the Transparency Report also breaks down the number of Google search results each week that include a warning about malicious threats.

The report also found that 2 percent of the more than 14 million websites Google scanned in the United States were malware distributors. Meanwhile, Google found that 5 percent of the more than 300,000 websites it scanned in China would infect people’s computers with malware, while 8 percent of the more than 530,000 websites it scanned in Russia hosted malware.

Google’s Transparency Report has garnered attention in recent weeks after the revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs arose.

The company already publishes the number of government requests for user information it receives from the government in the report, but it has requested permission to publish the number of FISA requests it receives separately from criminal requests. To this end, Google filed a petition in a court last week asking for permission to release these figures, citing its First Amendment rights.