Technology news and Jobs 
Information Technology News Beware Google Wave links
Information Technology News Beware Google Wave links | Beware Google Wave links |
|
| by Stephen Withers | |
| Monday, 19 October 2009 | |
  
Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
Those using Google searches to try to gain an invitation risk landing on a page that attempts to install malware on their computer. According to Kane Lightowler, Imperva's regional sales director for Australia and New Zealand, the bad guys are using techniques such as Google search poisoning to attract people to malicious sites. "We've seen this happening," he told iTWire. Lightowler explained that one approach involves linking to the malicious page from reputable sites either by using exploits that allow the alteration of content hosted on a server, or simply by leaving comments. Embedding the right keywords makes the target appear a better match to Google, and setting the link text the same colour as the background means it is less likely to be spotted by the site administrator. "Google Wave is a very topical search term at the moment," says Lightowler, which is why it is being targeted. He suggests individuals run up to date security software on their computers and keep it up to date. Browsers such as Firefox and Chrome warn of dangerous search results, and there are various add-ons for other browsers to provide similar protection. Organisations should take steps to ensure the security of their web servers to prevent such malicious defacements. Previous attacks have concentrated on high-profile sites which have now tightened their security, so attention has shifted to compromising larger numbers of smaller organisations. One way this can be readily achieved is by attacking a service provider's server that hosts multiple sites. "Small or large [sites] are not immune" to the crooks' attention, said Lightowler. And the processes needed to mount such attacks are becoming automated, he warned. |
Tags
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
