Mass WordPress hijack poisons Google Image well
Hackers are abusing thousands of independent WordPress sites to litter Google Image search results with code that redirects users to servers that attempt to infect them with malware.
According to a report posted Friday, Russian researcher Denis Sinegubko identified 4,358 WordPress blogs that combined popular images from other sites with so-called doorway pages that redirected visitors to a series of malicious sites. The site at the end of the line displayed misleading graphics designed to trick users into installing fake security software by convincing them their machines have already been infected by malware and urgently need to be cleaned.
“The doorway pages rank quite well for some keywords both in Google web search and Google Images search (especially when you are searching for exact phrases),” Sinegubko wrote. “However the malicious redirects occur only when you click on Google Images search results, which proves that Google Images poisoning is the main goal of this black-hat SEO campaign.”
