Google’s free code-hosting Web site for developers is being used to distribute malware, a security researcher said on Friday.

Google Code is a place where programmers can host projects and code. Along with the legitimate code are links to fake videos that direct users to download a missing codec, said Dave Marcus, director of security research for McAfee Avert Labs. The codecs turn out instead to be password-stealing Trojan horses and programs geared toward stealing financial information for identity fraud, he said.

“They’re using it as a way to send out links or as a place to house their links and redirects because it’s Google and obviously it gets highly ranked in the index,” he said. “The bad guys look for services like this as a way to push out code.”

A Google spokesman said the company has removed malware-distributing projects from Google Code and search results.

“Google works hard to protect our users from malware. Using Project Hosting on Google Code, or any Google product, to serve or host malware is a violation of our product policies,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Using automated tools, we actively work to detect and remove sites that serve malware from our network. We have removed many of these projects from Google Code and from our search results. Additionally, we’ll continue to explore new ways to identify and eliminate such content.”

The problem is similar to one that was found to be plaguing Microsoft’s MSN Spaces site a year ago and continues to occur there, according to a McAfee Avert Labs blog posting.

Cybersquatting is as much of a pain in the brand name as ever, but Verizon has been awarded what it calls the “largest-ever judgment” against OnlineNIC, a company squatting hundreds of domains related to Verizon products. Verizon is set to collect $33.15 million from OnlineNIC—if anyone from the company can be found.

OnlineNIC is a domain registrar based in San Francisco that, according to Verizon’s 480+ page complaint filed in June, has made a business out of registering over 600 domain names like iphonefromverizon.com, itunesverizon.com, and treoverizon.com. Since no one from the “accredited” OnlineNIC appeared to court summons, the court “concluded that OnlineNIC’s bad-faith registrations of Verizon-related domain names were designed to attract web users who were seeking to access Verizon’s legitimate websites,” Verizon said in a lawsuit.

The telecom won a default judgement against OnlineNIC for $50,000 per domain name that OnlineNIC registered, and both Microsoft and Yahoo filed their own similar lawsuits later this year.

Verizon Vice President Sarah Deutsch displayed an affinity for the theatrical in the company’s statement, declaring that “this case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers.”

According to Verizon’s lawsuit, however, it may have trouble striking fear into the knees of cybersquatters everywhere since OnlineNIC’s perpetrators employees have gone to great lengths to conceal their identities. OnlineNIC’s employees have used “numerous shell-entities, fictitious business, and personal names,” in addition to covering basic tracks such as withholding accurate information from the company’s public WHOIS database. Verizon believes that one or more of OnlineNIC’s employees conduct business with various aliases and contact information, including “dehau manglang ciqi CO., LTD.,” “txt@yogidesigns.com,” and “DN4Ever.”

Regardless of the whereabouts of OnlineNIC’s one-or-more employees, the World Intellectual Property Organization said in March that cybersquatters are on the rise. In 2007, it received 2,156 complaints over cybersquatting—almost a 50 percent increase from two years ago—and ICANN’s plan to introduce new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs like .com, .net, etc.) will almost surely make matters worse. Instead of having to protect against derivative .com domains like the ones that OnlineNIC registered, Verizon may soon need to register domains like http://phones.verizon and plans.vzw; the sky could truly be the limit.

IGN/IndoVPS dalam waktu dekat akan meluncurkan produk perdana yaitu virtual server atau yang dikenal dengan nama vps (virtual private server) atau vds (virtual dedicated server) dengan datacenter di Indonesia (datacenter yang sama dengan layanan colocation/dedicated kami).

Kapan Anda memerlukan Virtual Server ?

1. Web developer yang memiliki banyak domain dan membutuhkan kustomisasi khusus untuk aplikasi Anda.
2. Anda yang memerlukan aplikasi khusus untuk mendukung usaha namun tidak tersedia pada paket shared hosting.
3. Anda yang lebih mengutamakan privasi.

Datacenter yang tersedia pada saat ini adalah : Batam, Jakarta dan Denpasar.

Catatan :

• Harga untuk sementara waktu tidak akan kami publish sampai dengan waktu peluncuran
• Waktu setup maksimal adalah 1×24 jam setelah proses konfirmasi pembayaran.
• QoS disini adalah jaminan bahwa satu host/nodes tidak digunakan untuk melayani virtual server (VPS/VDS) berlebih.
• Setiap paket memiliki sebuah host/nodes tersendiri, terpisah untuk menjaga kualitas QoS.
• Semua virtual server (VPS/VDS) memperoleh akses root.
• Setup sudah termasuk standar installasi sistem operasi, konfigurasi servis dan konfigurasi firewall.
• Pilihan sistem operasi untuk saat ini adalah : Centos, OpenSuse, Debian, Fedora, Slackware dan Gentoo

Kami melakukan perubahan paket dan limitasi bandwidth untuk menjaga stabilitas server dan jaringan kami baik dari ancaman luar, maupun dari ancaman dalam yaitu dari client dalam menggunakan jasa layanan kami. Bagi pelanggan baik hosting maupun reseller yang sudah terdaftar sebelum tanggal 1 Januari 2009, Silahkan Anda melakukan konfirmasi ulang. Anda akan tetap mendapatkan paket dan harga lama selama Anda masih memiliki account pada server kami.

Pelanggan termasuk reseller lama ataupun baru, dapat melihat peraturan penggunaan kami yang baru disini. Penggunaan peraturan penggunaan kami yang baru akan berlaku secara keseluruhan baik client dan/atau reseller mulai dari tanggal 1 Januari 2009

Konfirmasi harus dilengkapi dengan tanda bukti pembayaran yang kami kirimkan kepada Anda setelah menerima konfirmasi pembayaran dari Anda.

Kami akan melakukan suspend account pada pada semua server pada tanggal 1 Febuari 2009 untuk client yang belum memberikan konfirmasi dan akan melakukan terminasi pada 1 maret 2009.

Kami tidak bertanggung jawab atas kehilangan data akibat dari kelalaian dalam melakukan konfirmasi termasuk kehilangan nama domain.

Pendaftaran Paket Hosting/shoutcast dan Reseller baru akan dibuka kembali mulai tanggal 1 Januari 2009 jam 00:00 WIB.

Seiring dengan banyaknya permintaan akan paket single hosting reseller / reseller hosting single, kini kami telah menambahkan paket tersebut pada halaman reseller. Anda dapat memilih paket tersebut baik untuk webhost-starter #2 maupun shoutcast-starter#2.

Pada prinsipnya sistem paket ini sama dengan combo hosting reseller / reseller hosting combo, perbedaan hanya terletak pada jumlah server yang dapat anda tawarkan pada pelanggan Anda. Dalam paket ini, semua quota dan bandwidth dari combo hosting reseller / combo reseller hosting akan digabung kedalam satu server saja.