Rogue Anti-Spyware Targets Sesame Street”™s Big Bird

The idea of malware distributors abusing Google Trends is not new. The bad guys have once again demonstrated that they, too, can take advantage of Google Trends. This time their target is Big Bird’s birthday.

It’s not new that the Google logo includes Big Bird; it does so on special occasions. The Google logo clearly shows Today’s Hot Trends, and that’s a target for malware writers.

This year is the fortieth anniversary of Sesame Street, and the bad guys have begun their attack. Searching for keywords such as Big Bird’s birthday and Big Bird on Google displays pages with compromised sites.

Watch the video below, which shows how rogue anti-spyware attacks a system.

The video shows that the malware is literally pushed onto the system regardless of what the user does. In the past we have seen malware injected into a compromised site through exploits and iframes. Today, malware often attacks only from a search-results page. In certain attacks, if a user directly accesses a compromised site, then there’s no redirection to a payload and no infection.

Users have no idea what they will get by clicking on search results, which now are like a virtual minefield; you never know what will happen next. McAfee strives to protect users from such attacks through its free SiteAdvisor technology. It warns users with green, yellow, and red alerts next to each search result. You can minimize your risk of attack by using SiteAdvisor and paying attention to what you are clicking on.