Google, Yahoo and Other Search Engines Under Virus Attack

July 26th, 2004 by Loren Baker, Editor | 11 Comments

Apparently Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, and Overture are all under attack by a version of the MyDoom Virus.

MSN Search is working.

Latest MyDoom search engine use

(initial analysis. more details, and eventual corrections, will be posted as they become available)

The latest version of MyDoom, which started arriving in peoples mail boxes in force today, uses search eninges to find more recipients for its message.

Once the virus is started, it searched the users files for domain names. Once it spotted a domain name (e.g. ‘@example.com’, or in ‘www.example.com’), it will search various search engines for valid e-mail addresses within these domains. These search engines include Lycos, Google, Altavista, Yahoo and possibly others. Some of the search strings used:

GET /default.asp?lpv=1&loc=searchhp&tab=web&query=e-mail example.com

Some search engines report performance issues.

Vote for this post : 0

or Buzz it at Yahoo :

Comments

11 responses so far ↓

paavan s. on Jul 26, 2004 at 12:23 pm

Dear Sir,

In india, google working properly.

paavan
Phil on Jul 26, 2004 at 12:37 pm

The odd thing is that the auxiliary Google services (news, groups, images, Froogle, local, most of the beta stuff) works fine. AV is very, very slow, Lycos returns a ‘Server Too Busy’ error, but Yahoo seems to be fine. Teoma, Hotbot, Jeeves, Dogpile and the other minnows don’t seem to be affected. A pretty well coordinated attack, though.. bringing Google to its knees on its IPO announcement day. I wonder if that’s a coincidence?
Stuart on Jul 26, 2004 at 12:39 pm

Google has been off-line here for at least 90 minutes, I’m in Stamford, Lincs, UK
Ricardo on Jul 26, 2004 at 12:40 pm

I’ve just tryed the indian version www.google.co.in and it’s down too.

I’m working in a Corporate, we’re receaving emails maybe MyDoom related.

No official desclaim so far. I couldn’t find no news in CNN, Reuters…

ZDNet and The SearchEngineJournal seams to be the only source of information so far.

Regards.

PS: Is it Global?
john on Jul 26, 2004 at 12:51 pm

Google has been down all morning here in Chicago:

Server Error
The service you requested is not available at this time.
Service error -27.
Ricardo on Jul 26, 2004 at 12:52 pm

The must odd thing is that in my IE the Google Toolbar is gone!!!
XeoWebLog: Posicionamiento en Buscadores on Jul 26, 2004 at 1:56 pm

Un Virús afecta Google y Yahoo!
Parece que en el día de hoy un virús está afectando a Google, Yahoo!, Altavista y Overture. Se trata de una variante de MyDoom. Más información: BBC Andy Beal Search Engine Journal Hilos abiertos en foros: Search Engine Watch Xeoweb Foro buscadores…
Helene on Jul 26, 2004 at 2:07 pm

Take that, you BIG GORILLA!!!!
Electronic Cash News on Jul 27, 2004 at 6:35 pm

New Virus Brings Down Google and Yahoo Search Engines
This latest attack of the MyDoom virus caused a shock to the World Wide Web by bringing down major search engines to include Yahoo and Google.
Gerry on Sep 4, 2004 at 9:01 pm

I can’t use right now Google to search. I am searching with MonsterCrawler. My ISP told me it could be a virus, but he doesn’t know which.

I am in the Far East and it is now 10:03 a.m. of Sept. 5, 2004 Sunday.

Please someone tell me how to rid my computer of this virus that keeping Google out. It has happened before several times and I thought it was my ISP…
viagra on Jan 15, 2005 at 10:46 pm

This is great, look forward to looking into every area. Thanks for being there.