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Online Security Threat from Spread of Viral Internet Rumours (Emma Watson): Rise of Fake Virus Software Warnings Through SEO

By Andrew Redfern @ 29th July 2009 10:40 am

Internet rumours are by no means a new phenomenon. Experienced users are more than used to fake rumours of celebrity deaths, births and show business news. What has been witnessed recently however is the harnessing of internet rumours for profit. Generally fake antivirus warnings which force users to buy software or spyware are all that awaits a user sucked into the scam.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson, is one of the most recent focuses of such an internet scam. With the release of the new Harry Potter film Emma was a top searched query across the internet. In order to gain a volume of traffic these scams always target the most commonly used terms. Data on this is available from sources such as Bing’s X-Rank or Google Trends.

“On July 24, 2009, Watson was en route to her mansion in Oxfordshire….. Resuscitation efforts continued en route to the Oxfordshire’s Medical Center.. She was pronounced dead at 2:10 p.m. (GMT).”

Once the keyword target has been decided upon the scammers create pages containing shocking fake stories on third party sites. Using SEO techniques, the stories rank well in search engines for the term “Emma Watson” and the traffic begins. Once the flow of visitors has started is difficult to stop as users socially bookmark the stories and the story appears to gain authority simply by the number of users circulating and recommending it.

Unknown to the user however, is that the third-party site will contain malicious JavaScript which will infect each and every machine which download the web page. This could be in the form of spyware to log the personal details of the user, or the growing numbers of rogue virus warnings which scare users into believing their machines are infected. Users will subsequently have to pay the scammer themselves to have the virus “cleaned” by using a specific piece of software created by the scammer.
The rise in victims of these scams can be greatly reduced by using up to date virus software on your machine.

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