According to cyber security company SOPHOS, searching for a specific term can put you at risk.
This particular cyber attack targets a specific group of people around the world whose curiosity about a fairly innocuous topic makes them victims.
SOPHOS has therefore issued an urgent warning on its website warning everyone not to type these six words into Google or any other browser.
“Victims are often tricked into clicking on malicious adware or links that appear as legitimate marketing or, in this case, a real Google search” explained SOPHOS.
This is done through so-called “SEO poisoning”. This is a cybercrime technique where hackers manipulate search engine results to place their own malicious pages at the top of the search engine results list. This method allows attackers to make victims more likely to click on these pages because they appear trustworthy and popular in search results.
Since users are more likely to click on links at the top of the search results that they see as legitimate and popular, this provides a kind of “bait” that hackers will bite on.
But let’s see what are the six words that can cause such problems!
„Are Bengal Cats legal in Australia?” (Are Bengal cats legal in Australia?)
According to reports, people who clicked on this search result lost their personal information.
In this way, the hackers were able to access the private e-mails of the companies, where they could map the contact details of the customers, the time of purchase and the prices.
However, the links only appear if you add the word “Australia”, so those who live in the country are at greater risk.
Once users click on a hit, they can expect to lose data such as their bank account details through a program called Gootloader – which can steal data and even lock them out of their own computers, according to SOPHOS.
Although not many people are likely to search for Bengal cats, the company says it is worrying that this is happening in a strata theme that many would not even think could harbor such dangers.
According to SOPHOS a cyber criminals they attack little-known Google searches with the SEO poisoning technique.
A Daily Mail “as an elaborate technique” describe this, in which criminals manipulate search engine results to place websites they control at the top of the results list.
SOPHOS has warned that anyone who believes they have become a victim of SEO poisoning should change their passwords immediately.
The website reads: “GootLoader is known for using SEO poisoning to gain initial access. Victims are often tricked into clicking on malicious adware or links that appear as legitimate marketing or, in this case, a genuine Google search, directing the user to a deceptive website with dangerous content.
If the malware remains undetected on the victim’s machine, it creates an opportunity for a second-stage malware called GootKit, a highly cunning data-stealing and remote access Trojan (RAT) that provides permanent access to the victim’s network environment.”
Therefore, it is extremely important that you only click on reliable links.
A UNILAD requested a position from Google regarding the incident, but no response has been received so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries