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

Mozilla to the rescue?

[mrsam]

If the folks at Mozilla are listening, this is a golden opportunity to score some brownie points.

It should be possible for a browser to detect when a click on an anchor tag gets intercepted by a javascript onclick that goes to a completely different URL, and for the browser to throw a big fat warning instead.

Of course, nobody would expect for Chrome to do anything like this, since Google depends on this hostile and abusive practice for generating ad click revenue. But I would think that this would be a value tool for blocking potential exploits, and a thumb in the eye of Google.