Scam Alert: Hackers Poison 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' Movie Search Results
Harry Potter fans are anxiously awaiting the release of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' movie but for some who search for information on the new movie may run across search results poisoned by hackers in an effort to steal personal information.
In our recent post about the web getting more dangerous, it was revealed that the number of poisoned search results over the web has gone up over 111% this year when compared to last year's findings. There is no doubt that hackers have found another outlet to spread malware and scam computer users out of personal information. The weapon of choice in this scam and similar ones is through clever SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and search term poisoning. This is not the first time ruthless hackers have poisoned the search results for a popular movie release. It happened on a large scale with the release of the movie 'Twilight Saga New Moon' just last year.
What exactly is search result or SEO poisoning?
It is a complex method for hackers to poison search engine results because they have to go through a process of targeting certain keywords. This process involves them either hacking a legitimate website or create a new one that targets a certain popular news term. The hacked website uses optimized content which includes certain keywords that search engine will automatically seek out and return a result when similar words are searched for on sites such as google.com. Usually hackers thrive on popular news stories or terms that are searched for on a high volume. The recent scam of hackers using the new 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' movie as a popular term is rather witty because the movie is currently a fast growing search term on the Internet as the date for release (November 19, 2010) of the movie inches closer.
How does the Harry Potter movie poisoned search-results scam work?
Basically, when a computer user searches for information on 'Harry Potter' over the Internet they may find one of the results offering a free download of the movie. As enticing as that may sound, in the mind of computer experts and 'aware' computer users, it is illegal to do such a thing. Within the search result offering a free download of the movie, the user is redirected to a page that asks for personal information that must be completed to continue. Some of the 'offers' have been discovered to be ones that will win you a new Apple iPad. Doesn't it sound like a 'win win' because you get to download the Harry Potter movie and win an iPad? Not really. The whole scam is designed to steal personal information and never actually offer a download to a movie or a free iPad. The scam has also been known to infect a user's computer with a potentially malicious toolbar created to sniff-out usernames and passwords stored on the infected system.
Computer users are urged to always be cautious when searching the Internet. If some type of search result offers something that seems too good to be true, be assured, it probably is. The magic that happens in the Harry Potter movies is not real and you cannot win an iPad by simply filling out some survey that pops up on your screen.