The first week of March Madness has brought about many compelling stories, with a good deal of upsets and bracket busters. The most newsworthy of these has been the University of Northern Iowa’s ousting of #1 overall seed Kansas. This ‘Cinderella’ story has deservedly gotten a great deal of press coverage. However, those looking for information on the web may get infected with malware rather than a great story.
The eSoft Threat Prevention Team has been tracking search results on the story, and the NCAA Basketball Tournament in general, uncovering a great number of poisoned search terms. Searches for UNI Basketball or star player Ali Farokhmanesh return dangerous results leading to malware.
Seven out of the top 10 results for UNI Basketball link to malware including the second result. The rogue anti-virus payload has a very low detection rate among anti-virus vendors.
eSoft proactively detects and blocks blackhat SEO and search attacks similar to these using its automated systems and in-depth web site analysis. Any sites found are flagged as Compromised or Malicious, protecting eSoft SiteFilter customers.