As many as two million computers could be infected with new malware that Google is alerting visitors to on its search pages, with hundreds of thousands already warned that they may be infected.

Google security engineer Damian Menscher explained in an updated blog post that the malware is thought to have infected computers via "one of roughly 100 variants" of fake anti-virus software.

"We aren't aware of a common name for the malware," he added.

Menscher had said in the original post that Google would flash up a warning message if a user coming to its search page appeared to do so "through a small number of intermediary servers called proxies", indicating that they were infected.

"We hope that by taking steps to notify users whose traffic is coming through these proxies, we can help them update their anti-virus software and remove the infections," he said.

Full story: V3.co.uk