'Download Google Chrome' Search Results May Lead to Malware

Cybercrooks and hackers are addicted to committing crime over the Internet just as much as binge drinkers love to consume generous amounts of alcoholic beverages. Actually, the two can be considered to be a viable threat to the sanction of sane lifestyles, especially when a cybercrook can flood the Google search results for 'Download Google Chrome' with malware-laced URLs.

Security researchers have uncovered the search term 'Download Google Chrome' leading to URLs that serve up a nice cocktail of malware. This cocktail represents legal sites, such as chromeplugins.com, suspected to have been hijacked. One of the main ingredients used to hijack sites, which are otherwise recognized as legitimate to Google, is JavaScript and iFrame code. Commonly, such code can be injected onto legitimate sites through clever hacking methods.

Security investigators and researchers from the Websense firm have verified that the hijacked site, or web pages, diverts users to malevolent sites affected by the malicious JavaScript and iFrame code. From there, it is obvious that the redirected site is not Google owned or Google affiliated. The culprits behind this scheme have even gone as far as to include a type-squatted URL for Google Adsense and one placed on the site best-videogames.com, which does not currently load.

It has been somewhat of an old strategy among cybercrooks to attack legitimate and lawful sites for the purpose of spreading malware. For some reason, the same old hacker-drink continues to sell well and remains effective for putting its victim in a trance at the mercy of aggressive coding. What is happening in the recent 'Download Google Chrome' search query is, Internet surfers are getting at least one result to a legitimate site that has been injected with malicious code in some way. All of the pages of the attacked site may not include to malicious code but buried deep within the site it could contain code that instructs a web browser to redirect to a malicious site.

Scammers utilizing this latest 'Download Google Chrome' search poisoning act fast; so fast that they could distribute modified attack codes that hijack an end-user's PC. Not only that, but these poisoned sites may include advertisements laced with malware. The possibilities are virtually endless.

How to Protect Yourself from Malware-Laced Google Search Results

What we can do now to keep ourselves protected is to utilize updated antivirus and antispyware software to detect any malware that you may run across on legitimate sites that have been attacked with malevolent script code. Also, it is best to keep in mind that these are legitimate sites being attacked by hackers that actively show up on Google search queries. At any time a search result may yield a site that is under attack.

Have you ever done a Google search and clicked on a result that you thought was a clean and legitimate site but turned out to be laced with malware? If so, what happened?