Google’s transparency report now tracks malware and phishing sites

Google’s transparency report, which shows real-time traffic to Google’s services around the world, copyright removal requests, and data requests from government agencies, has added a new data source that keeps track of malware and phishing requests. According to Google’s blog post, this data comes from its safe browsing program — if you’ve ever visited a site and seen a large red background with a malware warning, you’re familiar with the company’s program. The new dataset Google is sharing on its transparency report shows how many people see “safe browsing warnings” for malware and phishing sites each week and where these malicious websites are hosted around the globe, among some other data tidbits. There’s also information for site hosts and webmasters to help clean up infected sites; and Google also shares data on how quickly webmasters clean up their sites as well as what percentage of sites get re-infected. If you want to see just how many malicious sites are cropping up around the web or where they’re coming from, Google’s new transparency report is available here.