This is a bummer. People are so creepy sometimes.
That picture of a cat licking a lollipop you found on Google Images may be infected.
According to the SANS Internet Storm Center, a number of Google Images are actually infected with malware that misdirects users to pages that try to sell fake anti-virus scareware that and to make users believe they must download the program to avoid viruses.
These scammers use photos from third-party sites so that the images appear to be legitimate, using top search terms from Google Trends so that the content on the page also seems real.
When a user clicks on an infected thumbnail, his/her browser sends a request to the infected page, which then runs the hacker’s script, and then redirects to the site trying to peddle scareware. SANS guesses there are over 5,000 hacked sites, with Google referring about a half million visits to these fake sites each day.
While researcher Bojan Zdrnja has developed a Firefox add-on that displays the infected images with a border in red, it is not yet available for public use.
Well what’s the point of it if no one can use it????
Related articles
- Attackers Using Google Image Search to Distribute Malware (computerbeast.wordpress.com)
- Attackers Using Google Image Search to Distribute Malware (pcworld.com)
Disgusting bait and switch tactic!!
so, then you discovered this by downloading cat pictures, right?
no- by reading the news
Gnnn. That explains what happened to me just a couple of nights ago. Looking for a nice free-to-use image of an old-time radio mic. Avast clicked in and blocked the site, but I was left with a very convincing page still on the browser that flashed dire messages. On the upside though, I caught a couple of nasties I didn’t know were there when I scanned using the existing (free!) anti-virus software.