Manila Earthquake Results in Malware Distribution

Experts of Trend Micro, a security firm, stated that on March 25, 2010 a 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit the capital of Philippines, Manila, and subsequently many Web users accessed the Internet for latest development and news on the fateful incident. Without any doubt, hackers left no stone unturned for providing details about the earthquake. Their content was fixed with fake anti-virus applications.

On an alarming note, fake anti-virus applications have become more widespread online as cyber felons make use of affiliate programs in order to earn well from their installations. One of the effective methods is to seize keywords, like in this case "earthquake Manila Philippines'', thus targeting the search results well known as blackhat search engine optimization (blackhat SEO).

According to the security firm, this keyword leads to harmful links that result in the installation of FAKEAV variants, especially TROJ_FAKEAV.ENZ. On clicking the link, JS_REDIR.SMB is downloaded, which shows a caution dialog box that informs users that their systems have been attacked. If the user clicks OK, malicious file is installed onto the user's system.

Security experts have commented that it is notable that these scary alerts make the hackers earn several thousands of dollars.

Considering the boldness of such harmful techniques and the damage they can cause to the user's system, experts suggest that when users see any such bogus warnings they shall close their browser and should not install anything offered. Disturbingly, while genuine anti-virus solutions curb the downloading of other malware, they hardly prevent rogue antivirus applications from being installed.

Further, security experts claim that yet another method to ignore rogue anti-virus applications coming up from unsafe search results is to look for familiar news sources, and avoid websites that seem doubtful.

On a concluding note, this is not the first time that a natural disaster has been used by blackhat criminals to earn huge bucks. In the fourth week of February 2010, a huge earthquake hit Chile and several people were killed in the catastrophe. Hackers immediately capitalized on the event which resulted in the poisoning of search results related to the incident for circulating malware.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/8/2010