Malware attacks through Google search results

Posted on January 30, 2008
Filed Under Technology |

PC World has an article on Malware attacks through Google search results. According to the article, towards the end of November in 2007, malicious software was loaded on over 40K web pages. These web pages were optimized for high search engine ranks on many commonly searched keywords. When unsuspecting users clicked on the link, the malicious programs on those webpages exploited any vulnerabilities and attacked the users PC. Some of the search terms that were exploited were “Microsoft excel to access”, “how to teach your dogs to fetch” or even “netgear ProSafe DD-WRT”.

The attacks lasted about a week. Google has since blocked all of the sites that were found to have participated in the attack. Google has not disclosed what measures were taken to ensure that this type of attack does not recur.

What lesson did I learn from this report? Be careful of search results, if the domain looks suspicious, don’t click. Protect your PC by making sure you are current on virus protection. Use Adware or other malware detection software. There are many free versions of software available to remove trojans,zombies or adware. Sometimes, there are free versions of virus checkers or adware removers that themselves will infect your machine. Do some research before you use any free software.

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