Due to an internal technical issue, Malwarebytes has blocked Google and YouTube

Google and YouTube, which are broadly used all around the world are suddenly blocked by this antivirus model. However, it was not intentional. Malwarebytes has addressed an issue that prevented users from accessing websites and services hosted on the google.com domain, including Google search and Youtube. According to a large number of reports from people affected by this, their browsers were prevented from accessing Google sites after Malwarebytes flagged and blocked them as malicious. The users revealed that they were swarmed by a barrage of malware notifications, all pointing to various websites on google.com subdomains tagged as containing malware.

Malwarebytes quickly picked up on what was going on and explained in a tweet published in response to the stream of user reports that this was caused by a temporary issue affecting a web filtering component module in the company's security products. "We are aware of a temporary issue with the web filtering component of our product that may be blocking certain domains, including http://google.com," the company said. Malwarebytes also provided a workaround for impacted users, which required them to disable the buggy module by opening Malwarebytes and toggling off the Web Protection option in the Real-Time Protection card. One hour, the anti-malware software vendor revealed that it had resolved the issue and all customers' software would update on its own to remove the false positive errors. "The issue is now resolved, and the update should happen automatically. If you are still experiencing issues, please ensure the Malwarebytes client is updated to the latest version," Malwarebytes told affected users via Twitter.

What is this Malwarebytes?

Malwarebytes is an anti-malware software for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, Android, and iOS that finds and removes malware. Made by Malwarebytes Corporation, it was first released in January 2006. Malwarebytes is a safe antivirus service. It can prevent viruses in real-time, stop ransomware from infecting your system, and protect you from accidentally visiting malicious websites. The service will also remove the existing malware from your computer or smartphone.

Their advanced virus detection techniques and several security features protect against a garden variety of online threats. That said, Malwarebytes doesn't have an integrated firewall. Not to mention, the free version only has malware scans, and other features are locked behind a paywall. It's worth mentioning that Malwarebytes was affected by a cyberattack back in 2021. Some of their emails were breached by the same attackers responsible for the SolarWinds hack. So, part of their internal emails was leaked. That said, there is no evidence that any user data was compromised.