FYI...

Yahoo! sponsored search results lead to rogues
* http://preview.tinyurl.com/db25xj
03-10-2009 - Symantec Security Response Blog - "Search engines are often used by attackers as platforms from which to deliver malicious code. A while ago it was reported that Google was serving up advertisements that led to misleading applications (also known as rogue antispyware products). This time, the malicious code authors are using “Yahoo! Sponsored Search” listings as a means to promote a misleading product called ”Antivirus & Security.” Antivirus-2009-new .com and Antivirus-pro-download .com are returned in Yahoo!... The sponsored search result leads to antivirus-2009-new .com and antivirus-pro-download .com, where users are asked to make a payment to buy a membership in order to obtain the product.
>>> Instead of using techniques like search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning to get the opt listing in the search engine results, attackers are using Yahoo’s advertising services to display their advertisement on all websites that display Yahoo’s sponsored search results...
Fortunately, these sponsored listings have since been cleaned up and all websites that display sponsored search results from Yahoo, and no longer appear to be displaying these misleading advertisements. However, links to this website in forum comments and other website pages still can be found. A Yahoo search returned around 9,000 results and a Google search returned around 5,000 results when searching for “antivirus-2009-new .com.” For “antivirus-pro-download .com,” Yahoo returned around 10,000 results and Google returned around 1,650 results..."

(Screenshots available at the Symantec URL* above.)



This post has been edited by AplusWebMaster: Mar 12 2009, 03:08 AM

FYI...

SEO Poisoning - MS Security Essentials ...
- http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Alerts/3485.aspx
09.30.2009 - " Websense... has discovered that search engine results for information on how to download Microsoft's recently released Security Essentials tool are returning links to Web sites that serve rogue AV. Malware authors have used Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to mix rogue search results in with legitimate results. For example, one of the rogue links is directly under a MSDN blog entry discussing Microsoft Security Essentials. The rogue redirects are hosted on compromised Web sites, including a Canadian publisher's Web site and the British Travel Health Association. When a user browses to the compromised Web sites, so long as they have been referred by a search engine, they are redirected to malicious Web sites with domain names such as computer-scanner21 and computervirusscanner31. An example of one of the payload files shows that AV detection is low. One such file is named Soft_71.exe (SHA1: 4e58a12a9f722be0712517a0475fda60a8e94fdc). If the user downloads the application, a file with extension .tif is downloaded in the "program files\TS" directory as TSC.exe and system.dat (the .tif file is decrypted/decompressed and split). The payload then executes "tsc.exe -dltest" apparently connects to a NASA Web site to check internet connectivity. Finally, "tsc.exe" is executed with no parameters, and the rogue AV starts. (In the background the original file is deleted). Since yesterday the Websense ThreatSeeker Network has been monitoring SEO poisoning of search terms related to Microsoft Security Essentials. It appears that the malware authors set up a trial run of SEO poisoning techniques, before converting the redirects to deliver rogue applications today..."

(Screenshots available at the Websense URL above.)