Right here’s the best way to keep away from being hit by fraudulent web sites that scammers can catapult on to the highest of your search outcomes
10 Apr 2025
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4 min. learn
When was the final time you looked for one thing utilizing Google Search, Bing or one other gateway to the countless expanse of the web? What a foolish query, proper? It could have been simply moments in the past and maybe it’s even the way you landed on this blogpost.
Others looking out on-line, nevertheless, might encounter much less favorable outcomes. How so? Our behavior of blindly trusting and clicking on prime search outcomes has turn out to be so predictable that it may be subverted and turned towards us.
Rigging the sport
Cautionary examples aren’t arduous to come back by, and I recall one that’s too quirky to not point out: some Australians who not too long ago looked for one thing as innocuous because the legality of Bengal cats within the nation didn’t obtain simple data on pet laws; as an alternative, they unwittingly ran the chance of having their knowledge stolen following a series of occasions that began with a click on on a prime search engine consequence.
However even in case you’re not a cat fancier, you must know that even a easy search question might breed bother. Some cybercriminals have for years been utilizing strategies that may push malicious web sites dressed as much as look legit into the highest of individuals’s search outcomes, sometimes leveraging both search engine optimisation poisoning (also referred to as black hat search engine optimisation) or, much more generally, malicious search adverts.
One refined instance of ‘search engine optimisation fraud as a service’ was uncovered by ESET researchers in 2021 after they discovered a beforehand undocumented server-side trojan that manipulated search engine outcomes by hijacking the popularity of the web sites it compromises. Related campaigns had been noticed once more simply weeks in the past.
In one other instance, ESET researchers recognized a marketing campaign that deployed adverts in Google search outcomes main victims to phony web sites that appeared similar to these of fashionable software program, reminiscent of Firefox, WhatsApp, or Telegram. The tip aim was to achieve full management of the compromised units.
The dangers aren’t misplaced on Google, after all. Based on its newest Adverts Security Report, in 2023 the corporate “blocked or eliminated over 5.5 billion adverts, barely up from the prior 12 months, and suspended 12.7 million advertiser accounts, almost double from the earlier 12 months.”
Some threats nonetheless slip by, nevertheless. Which is why it pays to know concerning the dangers concerned in each natural and paid search outcomes, and the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Hidden in plain sight
The current meteoric rise of AI instruments, for one, has created new looking grounds for scammers, sparking schemes the place fraudsters purchased adverts for counterfeit ChatGPT websites that redirected individuals to web sites harvesting bank card particulars. The positioning beneath displayed logos of precise OpenAI companions, probably duping even many tech-savvy victims. A lot the identical factor occurred with different AI instruments, together with most not too long ago when DeepSeek burst onto the scene.
ESET researchers in Latin America not too long ago noticed a classy marketing campaign that impersonated the La Veloz del Norte bus firm campaigns and focused Argentinians who seek for long-distance bus tickets. Vacationers who entered their data on the imposter web site unwittingly handed over each login credentials and banking particulars to cybercriminals.
Monetary companies signify significantly high-value targets. In 2022, ESET researchers in Latin America alerted individuals to scams impersonating Mastercard by adverts.
Staying protected
Most of all, keep in mind that prominence in search outcomes doesn’t mechanically equate to legitimacy. Additionally, chances are high excessive that many individuals don’t at all times distinguish between natural outcomes and adverts, and criminals benefit from this particularly by malvertising campaigns aimed toward individuals who, for instance, seek for software program.
In some instances, fraudsters might register a typosquatting or similar-looking top-level area to that of the software program writer as a way to dupe the sufferer, as was the case right here with telegraem[.]org. Which is why you must keep away from blindly clicking on no matter seems on the prime of your search web page. As an alternative, look at the URLs meticulously and look out for any indicators that one thing is amiss. Apply the identical degree of scrutiny in case you’re utilizing Google’s AI search options, as scammers are always evolving their strategies and discover new methods of selling web sites that push scams and malware.
Defend your digital accounts with robust and distinctive passwords or passphrases, in addition to with two-factor authentication. Use respected safety software program that may determine and block connections to malicious domains, thus offering a further layer of safety towards misleading search outcomes.
Additionally, Google itself presents instruments to examine the outcomes, reminiscent of accessing particulars by clicking the three dots adjoining to sponsored listings, which might expose discrepancies between claims and the true identification. In the event you suspect that you’ve got encountered a dodgy web site, you possibly can report it to Google.
Conclusion
We’ve all finished it 1,000,000 instances: typed a question, scanned outcomes, clicked on considered one of them, ‘received our fill’, and moved on. And though traditional serps more and more compete with the likes of ChatGPT and AI-generated search summaries, the traditional search-and-click routine is unlikely to go wherever any time quickly. Outdated habits die arduous, and the dangers aren’t going wherever, both. Search rigorously.
