Google removes thousands of malware sites

Thousands of malware sites that wormed their way into results lists for hundreds of legitimate search phrases were disclosed. It showed up that network bots designed to post relevant keywords and spam links in various online forms (think forum posts or Blog comments) helped attackers claim high-ranking search engine positions for various obscure and seemingly innocuous search terms. Further investigation also revealed that these SEO-poisoning attacks were targeted at Google, although other search engines may have also been victim to the attacks. According to Sunbelt, two of the thousands of terms were "infinity" and "hospice." 

 

Google stepped up and cleansed the index as quickly as being made aware of the problem. Still, this event is considered "a big wake-up call to users" to stay up-to-date with security updates or find some sort of Internet security solution.

 

The techniques used for these attacks were more clever and thought out than the typical SEO-poisoning. They were based on the sheer scale of sites and domains dedicated to hosting these malware links.