Hackers Using Swine Flu Topic to Spread Malware

Is it possible for hackers to over-take legitimate web-search results for the 'swine flu' term? While the Swine Flu continues to spread, security researchers from Websense Security Labs Threat Seeker Network have noticed thousands of new websites related to the swine flu. Details of this new discovery indicate that most of the new swine-flu-related sites are used for advertising, spamming, selling products and spreading malware.

What is the purpose of these malicious sites?

Security researchers believe that these sites were setup to hijack search results when a computer user searches for the term 'swine flu'. When using Google to search for 'swine flu', some of these malicious sites are returned as high as the fifth result on the search results.

It was found that many of the malicious sites that show-up on the web search results are the type that redirects users to a web page asking that you install a missing codec to watch a video. This uses the old malicious tactics of offering a video to a computer user and then notifying them to download a piece of software, such as a fake Adobe Flash Player, in order to watch a video on their computer.

Just recently, spammers were discovered to capitalize on the swine flu to pitch bogus medications. Not only are the cybercriminals exploiting swine flu through spam messages, but they have gone as far as to create a large volume of swine-flu-related malicious websites to spread malware.

How do malicious websites show-up on a swine flu web search results?

Basically, cybercriminals have injected their malicious website links into web search engine results through clever SEO tactics using swine flu keywords. Security researchers suspect that the hackers will start to use more advanced SEO techniques to infect more computer users. It is very possible in the near future, that a simple web search for 'swine flu', through popular search engines, will return a number of links to new malicious sites that use illegitimate strategies to ultimately steal money from innocent computer users.

Have you encountered any suspicious websites when you did a web-search for 'swine flu'?