Category Archives: search engines

Pirate Bay Search Appearing in Chrome

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While googling some errors today I noticed I had the option to use

the pirate bay search

enter image description here

Now I saw a similar question posted here How did piratebay.se search engine get in Chrome as an “other search engine”

But my problem is different.

It only appears when I search what I was searching in the above photo, it doesn’t appear for anything else, or at least I haven’t found another search combination where it has appeared.

eg

Search One

It only appears when I use the below search.

Search Two

As well, there is no extension in my chrome browser which installs this, it’s just there.

Extensions

Now the obvious answer might be, oh you visited PirateBay at some stage and that’s why it’s there, But I can guarantee that this system has never once been on the site, the last thing I googled which included the word Pirate was “Pirate Jokes” which, unfortunately turns up some good results.

enter image description here

I have scanned my system for Malware and Viruses and there’s nothing.

So –

  1. The machine is free of Malware and Viruses
  2. The machine has never visited The Pirate Bay before
  3. There’s no Chrome Extensions for “The Prate Bay Search”
  4. It only appears for certain Syntaxes

Basically my questions are –

  1. How could that have gotten there
  2. Is there anything to worry about
  3. If so, what would you recommend

Thanks in advance

Edit One:

If i try to search using it, it will re-direct me to the piratebay

Searching

enter image description here

We block the website so it will never go there, but it could potentially cause issues for a network where Torrent Sites are not blocked.

Edit Two:

So my new question is.

Can this be a vulnerability to a users machine?

If a company or user did not have sites like that blocked and a user searched it accidentally, could they be infected with malware, I’m thinking of a JavaScript exploit or something similar as 90% of users I imagine just click “Allow” or “Okay” on pop ups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhole_exploit_kit

https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/javascript-malware-explained/

I’ve encountered JavaScript attack code – how do I search for information on the exploit’s specifics?

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