The bereavement of actor Patrick Swayze has kicked off a new encircling of spam runs, according to refuge experts. Researchers with security firm F-Secure reported spotting spam messages on the theme just hours after news of Swayze’s death from pancreatic cancer first broke on news ropes. The attacks are supposed to use the method of search engine optimization (SEO) – loading web pages with reference to the actor’s name in hope of obtain a higher position in search engine results.
When a user does run a look for on Swayze and end up at the spam page, a pop-up inform the user of a malware “infection” and then display a pop-up image mimicking the Windows security screen. Users who are dupe by the fake security alert will then find their systems impure with a scoundrel antivirus device as well as a simple PHP script which logs the user’s country and city location. Researchers think that the information is being gathered for traffic analysis.
The use of current proceedings in spam runs has become a well-liked tactic for cybercriminals in new years. The assure of video and photos of hot news topics is often used to dupe user into allowing the fitting of malware, adware and phony security tools.Most lately, malware writers took advantage of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to spread their unsavory wares.
In addition, spammers and malware distributors have increasingly made use of search engine optimization techniques to make attack sites more vulnerable and effective for bringing in victims.