KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — Several news portals in Malaysia, including The Malaysian Insider, have been affected with warnings of malware from Google originating from Innity, an online advertising network.

The search giant has now blocked some 600 websites after Innity started serving advertisements that pointed to malware infected sites.

The Wirespot Tech Blog reported that some of the sites include TheStar and MalaysiaKini. The Malaysian Insider, Berita Harian and MySinchew websites have also been affected

Berita Harian's site has also gone off-line following the warnings, but it is unknown if the inaccessibility is related to the malware issue.

“According to a report on Google Safe Browsing, Innity hosted malicious software and distributed it to sites that serves the Innity ads. Owners of infected websites are recommended to remove all Innity codes/ads until Innity resolves the problem,” Wirespot reported.

Innity claimed on its website that its network serves 2.1 billion impressions and has over 29 million unique users a month. Some 250 top regional sites in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia carry Innity Ads.

Google detected the threat on September 19 and the number of infected websites appears to be growing every hour, Wirespot said.

The malware warnings are issued by Google and appear to affect most or all of the most popular Internet browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s own Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and Apple’s Safari.

The Malaysian Insider has suspended the codes for the Innity advertisements but those still facing malware warnings are advised to go to its mobile site until the issue is resolved.