Black hat SEO rides the Google Wave, Obama Nobel stories
Friday, October 16, 2009
Cybercriminals exploiting popular interest in trending topics on search engines have recently caught on to stories about President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize and Google Wave for distributing malware.
Web security researchers at Websense reported that cybercriminals are poisoning Google search results for Google Wave with search engine optimization (SEO) tactics - or black hat SEO - to lure searchers to their websites laden with malware.
Trend Micro reported on its Counter Measures blog that scammers are offering to sell Google invites to the beta-testing phase of Google Wave, a service that combines instant messaging with email for live communications.
Obama's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize and the subsequent debate about its merits have also triggered a spam campaign that asks users to visit a website to download a phony report on the issue which contains malware, McAfee reported on its security blog.
Cybercriminals have recently used similar tactics to spread viruses and malware with websites and spam related to news stories such as celebrity deaths like Michael Jackson and Patrick Swayze and earthquakes and tsunamis in Asia.
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