This is dangerous for hackers.
Computer users are Googling whether it is legal to keep Bengal cats after finding themselves the victims of a bizarre cyber attack.
Cyber security company SOPHOS issued an urgent warning on its websitePeople were urged not to type the six words into their search engines.
People who Google “Are Bengal cats legal in Australia?” Their personal information has reportedly been stolen after they clicked on a fraudulent link that appeared near the top of the page.
“Victims are often tempted to click on malicious adware or links disguised as legitimate marketing, or in this case, a legitimate Google search,” SOPHOS reported.
Currently, dangerous links appear in search results only when the word “Australia” is included, meaning those in the bottom are at the greatest risk of attack.
Once users click on a search result – which looks legitimate – their personal information, such as bank details, is stolen through a program called Gooloader.
According to SOPHOS, the program can also lock users out of their computers.
While the search terms for Bengal cats seem to be relatively specific, the company claims that this makes the threat of hacking even more dangerous because you don’t have to search for anything nefarious to have your personal details stolen.
SOPHOS says cybercriminals are increasingly infiltrating Google’s innocuous searches using a tactic called “SEO poisoning.”
practice is described by daily Mail “As an insidious technique in which criminals manipulate search engine results to push websites they control to the top of the page”
SOPHOS urges people who believe they may be victims of SEO poisoning to change their passwords as soon as possible.
