Mexican Rogueware Attack Indicates Surge in SEO Poisoning

An earthquake of 7.2 magnitude hit Baja California's Mexican peninsula on April 4, 2010. The earthquake killed one person and caused scattered property damage. Not even two hours were passed when news regarding the catastrophe spread, and cyber crooks began poisoning search results with the malicious links that landed users to malware and rogue anti-virus applications.

In one of the searches that are poisoned by the cyber criminals, "Earthquake Mexico April 4 2010" is the keyword, and half of the first ten search results redirect to rogue antivirus. Each of the malicious links redirects the user to either of the two sites, supersafe26p or supersafe40p, which dwell on xorg.pl domain.

Experts asserted that such Search Engine Optimization (SEO) assaults bring in good amount of money for the cyber goons executing them; an affiliate link is used in each of these malicious links and they get money for each installation.

SEO poisoning attacks, according to them, are thriving as they move on very quickly. The moment a malicious campaign is identified and detached from the search results, the cyber assailants can automatically redirect their botnets to a fresh, opportune search term.

Indeed, these current attacks or campaigns have a confirmed modus operandi, and they are expected to gain momentum this year. SEO attacks have turned out to be the most prevalent, one of the fastest-growing sorts of Internet frauds. This may, in turn, lead to a trust issue in search results between users until and unless search providers change their way of documenting and presenting links.

According to experts, it is to be noted that cyber felons, in the recent past, have compromised each and every event which has earned world-wide fame. For example, the Haiti and Chile earthquake disasters, the Air France Flight 447 accident, March Madness, etc.

Therefore, the best way to avoid such attacks is to only rely on trusted news sources while surfing the Internet for a breaking news or a big news event. Also, only the authentic Internet security programs of renowned security firms must be installed. Users must never click on pop-up claiming about infection in their system or offering free scan. In order to remove any scam programs that has infiltrated into the system incidentally, the PC must be thoroughly scanned.

Related article: Maximum Trojans in Q1 2007 Were Created to Grab Money

» SPAMfighter News - 4/16/2010