Cybercriminals frequently use fake search engine listings to take advantage of our trust in popular brands, and then scam us. It often starts, as with so many attacks, with a sponsored search result on Google.
In the latest example of this type of scam, we found tech support scammers hijacking the results of people looking for 24/7 support for Apple, Bank of America, Facebook, HP, Microsoft, Netflix, and PayPal. Here’s how it works: Cybercriminals pay for a sponsored ad on Google pretending to be a major brand. Often, this ad leads people to a fake website. However, in the cases we recently found, the visitor is taken to the legitimate site with a small difference.
Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labz
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- Malicious Attackers Target Government and Medical Organizations With COVID-19 Themed Phishing Campaigns
April 14, 2020
Despite prior reporting by various sources indicating that some cyber threat attacker activity may subside in some respects during the COVID-19 pandemic, Unit 42 has observed quite the opposite with regard to COVID-19 themed threats, particularly in the realm of phishing attacks. While the various COVID-19 themed phishing campaigns observed by Unit 42 are numerous, this blog ...
- Overlay Malware Leverages Chrome Browser, Targets Banks and Heads to Spain
April 14, 2020
Researchers are warning of a remote overlay malware attack that leverages a fake Chrome browser plugin to target the accounts of banking customers in Spain. Grandoreiro is a type of remote overlay banking trojan, designed to help attackers overtake devices and display a full-screen overlay image when victim accesses their online banking account. In the background, meanwhile, the ...
- Travelex Pays $2.3M in Bitcoin to Hackers Who Hijacked Network in January
April 10, 2020
Travelex has paid out $2.3 million in Bitcoin to hackers to regain access to its global network after a malware attack at the new year knocked the global currency exchange offline and crippled its business during the month of January. The move—reported by the Wall Street Journal—may seem counterintuitive, as experts in the past have typically recommended that companies ...
- Dutch police take down 15 DDoS services in a week
April 10, 2020
In a press release published today, Dutch police said they have successfully taken down 15 DDoS-for-hire services in the span of a week, as part of one of their most successful crackdowns against online DDoS service providers. The DDoS-for-hire websites, also known as DDoS booters or DDoS stressors, allowed users to sign up and launch DDoS ...
- Hackers struggle morally and economically over Coronavirus
April 9, 2020
With the Coronavirus pandemic in full swing, threat actors are torn about how they should operate during the pandemic, and like everyone else, are also seeing a downturn in the underground hacker marketplace. In mid-March, BleepingComputer asked numerous ransomware operators whether they would stop targeting health care companies during the Coronavirus pandemic. Some operators stated they would no ...
- Unique P2P Architecture Gives DDG Botnet ‘Unstoppable’ Status
April 9, 2020
The coin-mining botnet known as DDG has seen a flurry of activity since the beginning of the year, releasing 16 different updates over the course of the past three months. Most notably, its operators have adopted a proprietary peer-to-peer (P2P) mechanism that has turned the DDG into a highly sophisticated, “seemingly unstoppable” threat, according to ...