Google Search Console alert: Harmful content - Uncommon Downloads

Question

today Google Search Console show me some alert on my website

click on link "Malware detected?" open a page with details:

but the list "Sample URLs" is empty and also "Download all samples" download an empty document.

What happen? It seem a false positive. From the docs:

If Google Safe Browsing hasn't seen a particular binary before, Chrome may warn that it is uncommonly downloaded and could be dangerous. In these cases the warnings are lifted automatically if Google Safe Browsing verifies that it is benign.

If your site is showing uncommon download warnings, you can also request a review in Search Console.

On my website users can download some software (built by me), some day ago i have deployed a new release. I have checked with all Antivirus (the most populars) and it is safe. All my software are signed with good a certificate autority.

The question is: how can i fix this problem?

UPDATE

After the review, the problem is disappear/fixed.

Solution 1

After the review, the problem is disappear/fixed. I raised a "review request" stating:

The malicious content report doesn't contain any specific link affected by malicious content and I believe, after thorough checking of my website and my server, that my website is safe and secure for the users.

After 3 days, I received the review successful email from google stating:

Google has received and processed your security review request. Google systems indicate that [name-of-my-website] no longer contains links to harmful sites or downloads. The warnings visible to users are being removed from your site. This may take a few hours to happen.

Looks like it was indeed a false alarm and I believe it is most likely triggered because of advertising links. Google seems check the website when i start a campaign on their own systems like "AdWords". This check can report false positive if founds some uncommon/unknown binary file like *.exe.

This policy is a bit questionable, because can kill little developers/software company that provide software for the niches.

Solution 2

My suggestion is that you install an ssl certificate on your website - though you blocked off your domain name, I noticed that you are using http://____, which in and of itself can trigger Google Chrome to give users a warning when visiting your site. Now considering that you are providing a software download, this will undoubtedly add more risk for your users who are downloading software from your site.

If you install an SSL cert (which is a known ranking factor & will enhance your visibility) as well as try hosting your software with a third party (such as github), I believe that this would be enough to resolve your issue.

Comments

[jjl]

This stupid $%@ is a headache even for companies with 500k+ users...