Palm OS utilties may harm your computer
SEARCH GIANT Google is flagging the remnants of a Palm OS software guide as "dangerous" for your computer.
The "This site may harm your computer" warning comes attached to almost all results on the applications.palmsource.com web site which is still indexed by Google despite the fact that Access software has stopped using that domain some time ago. We found this odd situation while looking for utilities for the Palm Centro smart phone, and as you might imagine, this doesn't give users a warm fuzzy feeling.
As thing stands right now, besides seeing this ominous warning attached to each Google search result, when you click on each URL you are sent to an interceptor web page like this one which reads: "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!". It suggests two alternatives: returning to the previous page or doing another web search. It also warns you that if you proceed, you do so "at your own risk".
We suspect this is just a result of a honest mistake of Access failing to pull the plug on the zombie web site applications.palmsource.com domain name. Yet it's strange to see Google thinks that a web page with broken links immediately becomes a source for malware. Another option is someone abusing Google's "report malware" web page.
In any case, it's quite pointless going ahead and clicking on the listed
applications after all the Google warnings: the PalmOS applications guide at
that domain shows broken images, and the application links end up in
palmgear.com URLs which in turn show a pocketgear.com
redirector.
A true mess if we've ever seen one.
PalmOS device users looking for software should ignore palmsource.com results altogether and are much better going directly to the software store at Palm.com over here or the Palm OS applications section at PocketGear. It should be noted that all *.palmsource.com URLs are intercepted by the firm's web site and redirected to access-company.com/ with the only exception of applications.palmsource.com.
We asked Access for comment on the zombie web site and this flagging by Google but we haven't received a reply yet. Palm Inc. of Centro fame also couldn't be very happy about this association of Palm OS applications and malware warnings. µ
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There is nothing odd about Google's warning, they are absolutely correct that it may harm your computer. The site is an old ASP application vulnerable to the SQLServer-focused SQL-injection hack that was recently mass-exploited (as reported here: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/30/microsoft-distances-itself-sql ). Many of the pages on it still have script tags pointing to the Chinese exploit servers. Avoid.
When this story came up on my filters, I immediately went to check it out. Lo and behold, applications.palmsource.com redirected to www.access-company.com, as I'd expected it would. I'm not sure when Fernando tried this, and I've no idea at all what the previous commenter is talking about, but I've been unable to find any actual factual support for this story, sorry. I don't know who Fernando might have attempted to contact, either, but he's welcome to email me and give me the details. David "Lefty" Schlesinger Director, Open Source Technologies ACCESS Co., Ltd.
I really didn't have to look very far. I did the same search as in the first screenshot above and followed the first link Google presented. View Source and bingo, there's a script tag pointed at a well-known Chinese exploit server. Site seems to be properly down now though - good.