Google Image Search Related to Mono Lake Infected

Recently, security researchers at the security firm GFI Software cautioned netizens that Google images that search results related to Mono Lake situated in Mono County, California (US) have been infected with malicious links.

Mono Lake had been in the news lately due to the discovery of a new kind of bacterium known as GFAJ-1. This bacterium was unveiled by the NASA's team of astrobiologists. GFAJ-1 is quite significant as it contains an important element called phosphorus, which is a vital element for the sustenance of life. Thus, in the absence of phosphorus, it can inject arsenic into its DNA and can flourish on it.

With such an important discovery and wide media attention, it is pretty obvious that a large number of people would search for the Mono Lake images online to view the organisms.

Unfortunately, cybercrooks are famous for exploiting trendy and hot topics that are popular amongst the general public and Mono Lake has now become one of them.

After viewing the images, Firefox users are redirected to a webpage that notifies them that they are now running Firefox 3.6.12 and informs them to update their Adobe Flash Player immediately by clicking on a provided malicious link.

The malicious link attempts to install 2Gcash on the users' computer. One more malicious link provided by the SEO poisoning, directs netizens to a website that attempts to install the SecurityTool, a kind of scareware or bogus antivirus (AV).

Security experts requested all the netizens to be alert while visiting websites via search engines, to ensure that the sources are authentic and to discard all sorts of downloads, as they might infect and compromise their machines. They further stated that the best suggestion is to make use of common sense while browsing through the internet.

Finally, it is because of such scams that have led Spanish cloud-based security vendor Panda Security to conclude that bogus anti-virus scams now account for 12% of all malware identified in the recent times. The security firm highlighted that, regardless of the fact that, bogus anti-virus scams had been around for nearly three years, 40% were created in 2010 alone, indicating that they have become a favorite choice of cybercrooks.

Related article: Google Rectifies Gmail flaw in Three Days

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