Cybercriminals are using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to distribute rogueware, according to a report by Web security company Finjan.

In its Cybercrime Intelligence Report for 2009, the company said hackers used SEO to optimize the distribution of their rogueware.

Among others, these cybercriminals used typos and misspelled keywords (such as "obbama" and "liscense") to show compromised websites as top search results.

Computer users who are directed to such malicious sites can suffer from a slow computer and sometimes need to get their computers repaired.

In addition, malware developers used trendy keywords taken from Google Trends system to increase traffic to malicious sites.

The inevitable outcome was that traffic volume to the compromised websites increased significantly luring masses of potential buyers to the rogueware offering.

The company said that cybercriminals are professionally organized and operate affiliate networks to boost their malware distribution.

It added that SEO targeted techniques proved to be very effective and yielded almost half a million Google searches to compromised sites.

So, for example, 1.8 million unique users were redirected to rogue Antivirus software in only 16 consecutive days.

Members of the affiliate network were rewarded with some $10,800 a day.

Links
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/032309-ukrainian-cybercriminals.html?hpg1=bn

http://www.finjan.com/Pressrelease.aspx?id=2214&PressLan=2139&lan=3