Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 11 Nov 2024, 07:00 am Print

Hackers are targeting intern users when they are typing these six words on search engine. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash
People searching for the sentence "Are Bengal cats legal in Australia?" on the internet are often facing cyber-attacks of an unusual kind, alerted a firm named Sophos.
Sophos, a cybersecurity firm, has asked people not to search for the words on search engines.
According to reports, people who are searching for the sentence on the internet are often seeing that their personal information is getting stolen after they click on fraudulent links that appear on the top of the page.
"GootLoader is known for using search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning for its initial access. Victims are often enticed into clicking on malicious adware or links disguised as legitimate marketing, or in this case a legitimate Google search directing the user to a compromised website hosting a malicious payload masquerading as the desired file," read the Sophos website.
"If the malware remains undetected on the victim’s machine, it makes way for a second-stage payload known as GootKit, which is a highly evasive info stealer and remote access Trojan (RAT) used to establish a persistent foothold in the victim’s network environment. GootKit can be used to deploy ransomware or other tools, including Cobalt Strike, for follow-on exploitation," the website said.
According to reports, the dangerous links are currently appearing only when the word 'Australia' is added when users are searching the engine.
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