Hackers Eye Top Search Terms
As what was reported, hackers have started on an organized attack on Google, Yahoo and MSN, search engines Big 3 with overwhelming keywords resulting in search results that point to malicious web sites. Once a user clicked on the links, the sites will result in a download of key loggers, Trojans, or elicit bogus clicks.
An excerpt from ZDNet said: Simply put, damn near any Google search term-even terms like "hospice"- can take you to one of these malware sites. Computerworld quotes Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry as saying "this is huge." I'm inclined to agree, especially considering Eckelberry's inventory: "27 different domains, each with up to 1,499 [malicious] pages. That's 40,000 possible pages."
How did malware hit top search results? Well, malicious sites seem to have made it to the top search engine results through blog spam, comment, and rigging Web pages with keywords for that particular purpose.
The malicious attacks were brought into focus by security researcher Adam Thomas of anti-spyware company Sunbelt Software. The malware from the sites make use of an iFrame exploit in IE and also result in the downloading of Trojans and keyloggers. Currently, major search engines have started purging the malicious links from their indexes. I just hope they'll be completely successful.
BBC News tells the rest of the story. Click here.
Search Engine News | admin | 30 November 2007 |
