Google Trends gives hackers ideas for popular content

Hackers are setting up fake blogs after being tipped off about the latest hot topics from Google Trends.

The blogs, which are full of malware, have been established after Google updated its information on the popularity of search terms. For the US, the most searched terms were regarding the Vice Presidential debate, Bosniaks, Civil War General McClellan and the Iraqi President Talabani.

Webroot have claimed that hackers are exploiting this information to make sure that their fake blogs will be picked up.

Paul Piccard, director of threat research at Webroot, said: “For the first time, hackers are capitalising on the top news stories from Google Trends Labs, which lists the day's most frequently searched topics, which can include news of the Wall St. bail out or the presidential campaign. These highly relevant news stories and videos are being posted to the hackers' fake blogs to increase the site's Google search rankings.”

Webroot claimed the blogs often contain video links to the story the person was originally searching for. This leads to them downloading a video codec that comes with a malicious payload.

Paul Lipman, Webroot's senior vice president, said: “Placing malware in video links on fake blogs is not a novel approach. However, the fact that these hackers are now manipulating Google's methods for relevance to increase the ranking of these sites is new and greatly increases the number of people exposed to this threat.”

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