Many WordPress websites have been hijacked to Poison Google Image Results, according to a report posted Friday by Russian researcher Denis Sinegubko. Read post
Sinegubko identified 4,358 WordPress blogs that combined popular images from other sites with so-called doorway pages that redirected visitors to a series of malicious sites. The site at the end of the line displayed misleading graphics designed to trick users into installing fake security software by convincing them their machines have already been infected by malware and urgently need to be cleaned, reports The Register
“The doorway pages rank quite well for some keywords both in Google web search and Google Images search (especially when you are searching for exact phrases),” Sinegubko wrote. “However the malicious redirects occur only when you click on Google Images search results, which proves that Google Images poisoning is the main goal of this black-hat SEO campaign.”
“It remains a mystery how the sites are being compromised. Many are running up-to-date versions of WordPress. What’s more, the compromise affects sites on a variety of webhosts, and not all WordPress sites on affected hosts contain the toxic links. All of that would seem to rule out server-wide attacks, compromises based on stolen site credentials, or an exploit of a compromise in WordPress itself.”
