The search engine has blocked access to the police website. For it has been detected that when a user visits it, malicious software gets downloaded and installed without the user’s consent.

“Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity thrice over the last 90 days. Of the two pages we tested on the site, both resulted in downloading and installing malicious software without user consent,” reads the Google posting for the Kolkata Police official website. “The last time Google visited this site was on February 26, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was also the same day.”

“It is possible that the site itself does not host these malware, but in some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites. But this definitely goes to show that the site lacks basic protection,” said a certified IT professional.

Malicious software found in the Kolkata police official website includes eight scripting exploits, 2 bots, 2 trojans. Scripting exploits on many occasions have been used to craft powerful phising attacks — fraudulent processes to acquire sensitive information, said the IT professional.

Often during an attack “everything looks fine” to the user who may be subject to unauthorised access, theft of sensitive data, and financial loss. Bots are used for an automated attack on networked computers. While Trojans appears to perform a desirable function but in fact performs undisclosed malicious functions that allow unauthorised access to the host machine, he added.