Scareware sellers fool Google with file switch

Cybercrooks have developed a new technique for manipulating search engine results in order to promote the crud they sell, such as scareware packages.

Hackers first place benign pdf files on web pages they are seeking to promote, before replacing these documents with booby-trapped Flash files once a new site has been indexed.

The ruse, which featured in a recent attack themed around ice hockey players and the Winter Olympics, is illustrated in a blog post by Finnish security firm F-Secure here. ®