Just when we were talking about cyber espionage as a major security threat to the world, comes news that a planned web hijack campaign has been busted. Sunbelt Software, one of the companies responsible for this expose, claims that this operation could have been the biggest of its kinds.
The hackers had developed a huge number of malicious websites and tricked search engines to get high rankings on their result listings. Whenever a user typed search terms like 'Christmas Gifts', etc. these sites would come up on good rankings. If the user clicked on these links, their machines would have been hijacked and personal data accessed.
The owners of these malicious domains used comment spam on blogs to improve their prospects in search engine rankings. By doing so, they convinced search engines that they were good, real sources of information and deserved to be ranked high. These sites catered to a wide range of search terms, especially the ones related to the upcoming holiday fervour.
The thwarting of this campaign has alerted the online world and lay users. Industry experts are now planning to take more stringent measures to keep a tab on such fraudulent activities happening on the World Wide Web.
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