Latest Kaspersky Update Identifies Google Adsense as Trojan (False Positive)

We at TechChunks.com made a sensational revelation back in Nov 2009 when we discovered about AVG Antivirus 9.0 Search Shield Blocking Google Cached Pages as Active Threats and now Kaspersky antivirus seem to be following AVG’s foot-steps! An update to Kaspersky‘s popular anti-virus software on Monday falsely identified Google Adsense as a malicious script.

As a result of the false alarm, Kaspersky users visiting sites in Google ad syndication network were falsely warned a site was infected with malicious Trojan-linked JavaScript. Network admins, swamped with inquiries, posted their experiences on a growing Kaspersky forum thread. Network admins and web publishers were faced with a flurry of complaints from users who believed legitimate sites were serving malware via Javascript.

Kaspersky Lab has reportedly said it is aware of the Google Adsense problem, and that an update to correct the problem should be issued shortly. No further details were available at the time of going to press.

Kaspersky users visiting TechChunks.com who get the warning: “Trojan.JS.Redirector.ar Links to pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js//show_ads” can be assured that this is a false alarm.

The Adsense false positive started happening just hours after the bit.ly web address shortening service was wrongly added to Kaspersky’s blocklist en masse as links to phishing sites. The Russian security firm said a fix for that problem would be published with its next malware definition update.

False positives still make for a well known shortcoming with anti-virus packages that affects just about every vendor from time to time. Flagging Windows systems files as potentially infected and shuffling them off to quarantine causes far more problems than if a false alarm happens to involve general applications.

Black-flagging such a widely used web application as Google Adsense arguably creates even more confusion, as the problem with dodgy Kaspersky Labs updates on Monday serves to illustrate.