Cats Help Hackers Steal Data: Some Google Queries Are Dangerous for Users
Computer users searching Google to find out if it is legal to keep Bengal cats are falling victim to a bizarre cyber attack. Cybersecurity company SOPHOS has posted an urgent warning on its website urging people not to enter six seemingly innocent words into their search engines, reports New York Post.
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People who Googled the phrase "Are Bengal Cats legal in Australia?" had their personal information stolen after clicking on links that appeared at the top of the page.
“Victims are often tempted to click on malicious adware (a type of malware called Ed.), links disguised as legitimate marketing or, in this case, legitimate Google searches,” the company explained.
Currently, dangerous links only appear in search results when the word "Australia" is present, meaning residents of that continent are at the greatest risk of attack.
On the subject: FBI Warns: Hackers Gain Access to Gmail, Outlook, AOL, Yahoo Accounts
Once users click on a legitimate-looking search result, they are robbed of personal information, such as bank details, by a program known as Gootloader. It is a multi-functional malware used to distribute various types of software, including backdoors, trojans, and ransomware. It operates through infected websites and uses SEO poisoning techniques to push malicious links in search results.
Gootloader is especially dangerous because it can be easily distributed through legitimate sites, making it appear deceptively safe to users. It actively targets businesses and organizations to steal data and infect corporate networks.
According to SOPHOS, the program can block users' access to their own computers.
While the search term "Bengal cats" seems relatively niche, the company says that makes the threat of being hacked even more dangerous, since you don't have to be searching for something nefarious to have your personal data stolen.
SOPHOS claims that cybercriminals are increasingly infiltrating innocuous Google search queries using a tactic called SEO poisoning.
The Daily Mail describes the practice as "a sneaky trick in which criminals manipulate search engine results to push websites they control to the top of the page."
SEO poisoning, also known as search engine poisoning (SEP), is a method used by cybercriminals to manipulate search results in order to promote malicious or fraudulent websites. The goal of SEO poisoning is to get dangerous or fraudulent web pages to appear on the first page of search results for popular queries, so that more users click on them.
There are several main methods of SEO poisoning.
The first is the use of popular or relevant queries: attackers choose queries related to hot news, viral topics or popular products. This increases the likelihood of redirection to malicious sites. The second is the creation of SEO-manipulated content: Fraudsters add a lot of popular keywords, metadata, and links to their sites to artificially boost their ranking in search results. The third method is malicious redirects: users who visit such sites are often redirected to malicious resources, where their devices can be infected with viruses or where they can be offered fake products. Finally, fraudsters can create fake pages that look like popular sites, but contain malicious code that can, for example, steal personal data or passwords.
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SEO poisoning is a serious threat, especially for users who have not protected their devices with antivirus software and do not pay attention to website URLs.
Therefore, SOPHOS urges those who could potentially become victims of SEO poisoning to change their passwords as soon as possible.
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