Information Security News: AVG disguises fake traffic as IE6

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/26/avg_disguises_fake_traffic_as_ie6/

By Cade Metz in San Francisco
The Register
26th June 2008

Exclusive - AVG has rejiggered the fake traffic it's spewing across the 
internet, causing new headaches for the world's webmasters.

In late February, AVG paired its updated anti-virus engine with a 
real-time malware scanner that vets search engine results before you 
click on them. If you search Google, for instance, this LinkScanner 
automatically visits each address that turns up on Google's results 
page.

According to the company, more than 20 million people have downloaded 
the new AVG 8, and this has caused a huge up-tick in traffic on sites 
across the web, including The Register. Because the scanner attempts to 
disguise itself as a real live human click, webmasters who rely on log 
files for their traffic numbers may be unaware their stats are skewed. 
And others complain that LinkScanner has added extra dollars to their 
bandwidth bill.

[...]


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