Is it possible to get infected by Google Viewer?

[Conor55]

I was browsing Google, and decided to click on a image, before, instead of taking me to google view and just showing me a mini picture, it went straight to the web address.

Second time round, it loaded the mini image but I clicked off it,

Is it hosted by Google when you click on the image? because you are technically viewing from www.google.com/images/ ?

Also, the links could have been malicious, is there any chance you can get infected by viewing just from www.Google.com/images/www.fiisma.com/image (blah blah, website is fake too, just a example)

(From the google forum, which I was just on, and I thought this would be a good question for the malware people. :-)

[Amethyst]

Well, we had a brush with malware on Sunday from clicking on a google image from a google search page. It showed up just fine at first and we were reading it (it was supposed to be a picture of a Valentine's Day greeting), and then next thing you know MSE popped up a warning that it had detected an ExploitHtml/IFrame.R and then the browser left the google page and tried to go to another page, which Malwarebytes blocked from loading. I happened to have Malwarebytes file execution blocking switched off for troubleshooting, but I did have the IP blocking left on, so that was good because the page never did load. I went back to the original google search page and reported the image, then closed the browser, and the rest of the evening and overnight hours were spent dealing with this. MSE prevented the exploit, but it allowed another bit of malware through, which a full scan with Malwarebytes caught.

Long story, but lots of scans and checks later (plus a consult with a Malwarebytes support person), and all is well. Thanks to all the reading I've done here, I was able to stay calm and just ran through a list of stuff to do and check and everything looks fine.

So to answer your question, Yes.

Edited to add: The file execution blocking in Malwarebytes is now set back ON. The support person who checked my logs said things would have been a lot worse had Malwarebytes not blocked that IP address.

[Conor55]

Ah, well I just did this myself, but MBAM and McAfee haven't found anything, nothing in Start up that seems weird and nothing in Task manager.. ;\

Thanks.

[mountaintree16]

Also bear in mind that these images are not hosted by or provided by Google; Google merely finds them from the world wide web, so most certainly they could be infected.

I've definitely gotten IP blocks when doing a Google Image Search, and not even viewing one particular picture, just viewing all the results!

[Conor55]

After scanning with MBAM, Eset online and McAfee, nothing found, so I think I'll take those 3 opinions.

[Amethyst]

I'm glad you're getting the 'all clear' from your scanners. That is very good news.

My son had experiences twice with clicking on what appeared to be a simple picture from google when he was doing homework and it turned out to direct the browser to malicious sites with rogue scanners. This is why we have Malwarebytes Pro rather than the free version. (I don't know what the solution is for this, but it would sure be nice if Google would take measure to protect people from this sort of thing. )

[theceocomputer]

I'm glad you're getting the 'all clear' from your scanners. That is very good news.

My son had experiences twice with clicking on what appeared to be a simple picture from google when he was doing homework and it turned out to direct the browser to malicious sites with rogue scanners. This is why we have Malwarebytes Pro rather than the free version. (I don't know what the solution is for this, but it would sure be nice if Google would take measure to protect people from this sort of thing. )

Agreed ,they try but you can't acually do that because every second theirs a new infected website and google can tell if it is even infected but 1/5 of blocks but this is one of the reasons malwarebytes is here for,to fight malware B)