IndustryOrganic Results Showing Many Malware Sites, Google Expunges Thousands

Organic Results Showing Many Malware Sites, Google Expunges Thousands

Seems companies using malware are starting to get good placement in the organic SERPs (search engine result pages), according to numerous reports this week. The sites contain code that install intrusive software that creates automated popups and subvert browsers amongst other things.

Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry told ComputerWorld he had come across “27 different domains, each with up to 1,499 [malicious] pages. That’s 40,000 possible pages.”

Sunbelt offers security software including antispyware and antimalware.

One site “tried to install more than 25 separate pieces of malware, including numerous Trojan horses, a spam bot, a full-blown rootkit, and a pair of password stealers. All the malicious code pitched at users is well-known to security vendors, and can only exploit PCs that aren’t up-to-date on their patches,” ComputerWorld reported.

Google has expunged thousands of such pages since Monday when the problem was first reported, according to Sunbelt.

“Google did confirm yesterday with us that they were working the case, and they are good about nailing this stuff,” Eckelberry told ComputerWorld.

Though ComputerWorld did say Google had not confirmed or denied any actions taken on their part.

If anyone is seeing any of these in any of the search engines please let us know here.

Resources

The 2023 B2B Superpowers Index
whitepaper | Analytics

The 2023 B2B Superpowers Index

8m
Data Analytics in Marketing
whitepaper | Analytics

Data Analytics in Marketing

10m
The Third-Party Data Deprecation Playbook
whitepaper | Digital Marketing

The Third-Party Data Deprecation Playbook

1y
Utilizing Email To Stop Fraud-eCommerce Client Fraud Case Study
whitepaper | Digital Marketing

Utilizing Email To Stop Fraud-eCommerce Client Fraud Case Study

1y