Blackhat SEO Attack Targets Obama’s Speech

Using search engines to browse the Internet these days is a dangerous endeavor. Cyber criminals are keen on gaming search engine algorithms and are able to quickly divert innocent news seekers to malicious websites.  Today, WIRED reported that cyber criminals were targeting a highly anticipated Dan Brown novel, but the target and scope is much deeper than that.  Literally every current relevant news topic is actively targeted each day, including highly publicized speeches given by President Obama this week. Clicking the following link in a Google search result will point us to a malicious Rogueware campaign page:      Malware Info: Adware/SmartVirusEliminator  Investigating the attack shows us a bigger picture of the targeted keywords:  Most commonly targeted keywords: Obama SpeechGM group enterprisesAppleBeatlesAmericaWhite HouseJon GosselinLive InterviewSchool SeasonThe full list of targeted keywords can be downloaded here: BlackhatSEO2.txtOver the past six months that PandaLabs has closely tracked the evolution of Blackhat SEO attacks, we’ve seen these targeted campaigns be executed by cybercriminals with increasing levels of speed and sophistication.  Today, Blackhat SEO is truly a mainstream tactic used by cyber criminals.  Targeting real-time news events is a serious problem not only for search engines, but for all parties involved in (continue reading...)