Google's Top Search Result For 'Target' Was A Tech Support Scam (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader quotes BleepingComputer: Malicious ads displayed in Google search results for Target -- the US retailer -- redirected users to a tech support scam. The malvertising campaign was spotted on Friday by a US user who posted his observations to a StackExchange thread. The rogue ad appeared when users searched for the term "target," right at the top of all search results, [and] used a feature of the Google Ads service that allows ad publishers to display a URL but redirect users to another link. For example, in the rogue ad, the displayed link was "target.com," but users were redirected to "tech-supportcenter.us." Surprisingly, this got past Google's ad quality control service... The page users landed on was mimicking the style of Microsoft's real website, but was urging users to call a phone number to remove a non-existent "HARDDISK_ROOTKIT_TROJAN_HUACK.EXE" file.
The article points out the same thing happen in February when Google's top search result for Amazon was a spoof site with another tech support scam.

Comments

Happening on Google News also

[mspohr]

Noticed today on the news.google.com site that two "stories" under the "Health" section were gibberish (kind of like covfefe) and when I clicked on them one led to an online casino site and another to a "Canadian drug" seller. The news headlines appeared legitimate. Not as dangerous but still disturbing.