eWeek reports that H.D. Moore, creator of the Metasploit hacking tool, has created a Malware search engine that will find live malware samples using Google search queries.
My Web interface will identify specific malware without the Google API. It directly searches Google using fingerprints from executables that we already have," he said.
Moore's project uses code strings, or fingerprints in malware samples, then runs a search on Google for those characteristics.
The search engine has been programmed with about 300 malware signatures and Moore said he plans to add another 6,000 signatures in a future bug fix update.
The Malware search engine comes with the following warning:
WARNING! The following links lead to executable programs that can harm your computer. Please be careful when accessing these files and make sure that you only run them in a restricted environment. The signature technique used by this search engine may result in non-malicious files being detected as malware, so be sure to use an updated virus scanner prior to filing a complaint with any web site.
eWeek's article says the Malware search engine found about 20 results for the Bagle worm virus with most of them residing on screensaver files.