Converting currency on Google can lead to malware attack

One of the guys at the North American branch of SophosLabs recently stumbled across some Euros following an overseas trip, and wondered how much they were worth in dollars.

So he did what any of us would probably do. He Googled it.

215 euro to usd

Google very cleverly and kindly tells you what it believes the conversion rate to be, but you’re also given a number of search results:

It’s that final search result which is of interest to us. A quick search finds a number of other webpages which don’t just use keywords related to currency conversion, but also other terms – “dirty sexist jokes”, for instance.

What is occurring here is SEO poisoning, where bad guys create poisoned webpages related to certain search terms in the hope that you will come across them and infect your computer.

The good news is that Sophos can offer a layered…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.