Microsoft launches Webmaster tools to sniff for malware

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it updated its Live Search Webmaster Center with the ability to detect malware on a publisher's site as well as any outbound links contained on that site. It also announced the launch of a simplified authentication process that makes accessing the company's Webmaster tools much easier.

According to Microsoft's senior director of Live Search, Angus Norton, the company's new malware detection tool will crawl sites for malware. Where there is malware present, it will automatically disable all the links that contain it and alert Webmasters to the issue. A report, which can be downloaded from Microsoft's Webmaster tools page, details which pages are affected and how the site can resolve the issue. Until the malware is removed, Microsoft will flag all the harmful links contained in search results as malware.

Microsoft's new Webmaster tools are active now on the company's page.

(Credit: Microsoft)

[tm_anon]

With Microsofts record of anticompetitive behavior, I'd be very very worried that it's "malware sniffer" for webpages would be set in such a way as to "discover" malware in any place that competes with its interests.

[Mam00th]

OMG, you're cool, you just said something bad about Microsoft...

On another note, that's actually not a bad idea, Google and Yahoo should do the same thing, giving another layer (albeit thin) of defense against malwares for the masses.