A study conducted by Trend Micro TrendLabs has revealed that the malicious use of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques has dominated Asia’s web attacks in Q1 2010, from January to March. In APAC, malware continued to arrive in systems primarily via Internet download, dropped by other malware or via removable drives.
Cybercriminals exploited hot topics and manipulated search results to subsequently pass on several FAKEAV variants to target systems. While blackhat SEO is not an entirely new technique, leveraging keywords related to trending issues remains to be an effective tool in malware propagation.
Among the APAC-related events used to lure users into clicking malicious links were news on the Philippines’ 6.0-magnitude earthquake, Filipino-Australian actress Anne Curtis’ wardrobe malfunction and the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey. In all the three attacks, the compromised search results led to the download of malware posing as antivirus software. The end goal of all three attacks is to trick users into purchasing the rogue AV product.Â
Apart from the continued proliferation of FAKEAV, compromised systems that are part of botnets were likewise proven to continue growing in size. Several botnets made the news this quarter, with the notorious KOOBFACE resurfacing to make the headlines. The first quarter of the year has likewise been marked with several vulnerability exploits beginning with the much-publicized HYDRAQ-related attacks related to an Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability. A known flaw in Adobe Acrobat and Reader was also exploited by malicious attachments of spammed messages that appeared to be targeting interested participants of the Shanghai Expo.
