Google has warned more than two million internet users that their computers are infected with a virus that intercepts their web searches.
The company said in a post on its online security blog that it found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of its data centres, but did not provide details on the malware.
The particular malware causes infected computers to send traffic to Google through the proxies.
The malicious software hijacks Google browser searches and redirects people to websites containing fake security programs that pay the scammers for traffic.
Google said that those affected by the virus will be greeted with a yellow warning at the top of their search results. The warning contains a link to advice pages that help people update their anti-virus and clean up their PC.
Google has also advised employees working in organisations, who view such a notification on the search page to notify their respective network administrators.
Scammers may attempt to gain access and extract privileged business information from organisational computer systems.
