You would think that searching Google for a link to download your favourite DAW, plugin, or other audio software would be safe, it isn’t. Read this now to avoid getting caught.
Many of us have done it, we want to download a piece of software and don’t know where to get it from. So we Google hoping to get a direct link to the software we need.
However, that option is no longer assured as safe, in their article “Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software” ARS Technica explain how unscrupulous sites are buying Google ads to encourage you to download malware and other malicious software disguised as your favourite application or plugin.
In the article they say;
“Threat researchers are used to seeing a moderate flow of malvertising via Google Ads,” volunteers at Spamhaus wrote on Thursday. “However, over the past few days, researchers have witnessed a massive spike affecting numerous famous brands, with multiple malware being utilized. This is not ‘the norm.’
It can happen to the best of us, a friend of the blog tried to renew their ESTA form for travel to NAMM this week. They clicked on the Google result only to realise a few minutes into completing the form on the site, that it was indeed a fake ESTA web site. These web sites look very convincing.
Google are being encouraged to get their house in order. Spamhous, identified a site that appeared in Google results claiming to be Nvidia, but when a WHOIS report was generated, found the site to be less than a week old.
Until futher notice, it is advised that you only download software and plugins from authorised sites and not third party download sites. Certainly, don’t download directly from a link on a Google result.