| | By Darleen Hartley @ Saturday, March 21, 2009 6:24 AM
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| | Search engines are being used by hackers to misdirect users to questionable web sites. Marshal, a software security firm, spoke of the role search engine optimization (SEO) lends itself to phishing attacks.
Fake security dialog boxes encourage users to download a fake anti-malware program – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Misleading sites mimic the California Franchise Tax Board and even college basketball web sites according to the security firm. 
The SANS Internet Storm Center reported that fake parking tickets were placed on cars which directed users to a website where they would need to install a toolbar to view pictures of their violation. The toolbar was, not surprisingly, malware.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 adopted a SmartScreen filter that pops up warnings when links are thought to direct the user to malicious web sites. However, one must heed the warning for it to be effective.
Google, on the other hand, depends on their guidelines for webmasters, which forbids using link schemes with hidden coding, or doorway pages to increase clicks. It also dumps web pages out of its search results when webmasters use programmatic queries to improve search rankings.
Blog spamming is another hacker tool. They use links that connect with automated tools to gain entry to your computer. Search engine or blog initiated, links that send users to malware-heavy pages are proliferating like bunny rabbits, and are no where near as cute.
The best protection against ending up in the dark alleys of the internet is up-to-date, quality products. Keep your browser, add ons, and patches current. And keep your wits about you when poking around on the Net. X
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