Malicious anti virus campaign fools hundreds of millions
By Joe Elvin
13/05/2011
Over 100 million web users have been duped into downloading malicious software thanks to a vicious search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign.
The campaign, created by a black-hat SEO expert, used Google Image Search to encourage web users to download fake anti-virus technology.
It did this by embedding images taken from popular websites; as well as generating masses of pages filled with of links and keywords in order to boost its SEO ranking.
Almost 5,000 servers have been compromised due to the attacks, with hackers planting fake anti-virus scanners and Traffic Direction Systems into them. Those in charge of these servers will now need to look for support to repair their network management system.
Commenting on the spread of the malicious software, a source from Trend Micro said: "This campaign again demonstrates how effective black-hat SEO techniques are in driving traffic to malicious websites."
"Despite low conversion rates in terms of exploitation and downloads or purchases, this operation is still likely generating a considerable amount of money for its operators."
The campaign was designed to targeted Mac users by using landing pages which were designed to imitate the appearance of the Mac OS.
A source from ITPro.co.uk also confirmed that the malicious Traffic Direction Systems redirected over 220 million hits from around 82.5 million visitors in the past 30 days.
