FBI Warns of Cybercriminals Abusing Search Ads To Promote Phishing Sites

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says that cybercrime gangs are using search results and search engine ads to lure victims on phishing sites for financial institutions in order to collect their login credentials. From a report: "The schemes resulted in illicit ACH transfers amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial losses," the FBI said in a private industry notification (PIN) send to the US private sector on Tuesday. The PIN alert, which The Record cannot share due to TLP sharing restrictions, describes a particular phishing campaign mimicking the brand of an unnamed US-based financial institution. "The cyber actors conducted two versions of the scheme," the FBI said. In the first version, the threat actor used search engine ads, while in the second version, they relied on the phishing site appearing in organic search results on its own.

And just think

[smooth wombat]

Ford wants to put ads on screens in their cars [slashdot.org]. Would could go wrong when you have a connected vehicle displaying ads?

Re: And just think

[BAReFO0t]

"Fun!", the heavy Slavic accent said. :D

Adblockers to the rescue

[RitchCraft]

I literally have not seen a SINGLE ad in over 15 years on the Internet using ad blocking technology. I currently use a combination of uBlock origin, Ghostery, and ClearURLs. You would be AMAZED at how clean web sites look when these are applied, not to mention the performance boost you get when loading pages. When I set these up on friends and family computers they are shocked to see the Internet without ads. Advertising has become the filth of the Internet but you do have the power to disinfect it.

Re:

[bobstreo]

I literally have not seen a SINGLE ad in over 15 years on the Internet using ad blocking technology. I currently use a combination of uBlock origin, Ghostery, and ClearURLs. You would be AMAZED at how clean web sites look when these are applied, not to mention the performance boost you get when loading pages. When I set these up on friends and family computers they are shocked to see the Internet without ads. Advertising has become the filth of the Internet but you do have the power to disinfect it.

At I used firefox and ad-blockers on my laptop and Unix workstation(s)

Nothing ever made me feel worse than having to go to someones office and battle IE6 to even get to a site to get work done. I'd cringe at all the ads that would appear, popups popping and pages that would open up and start autoplaying.

Currently using uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.

Re:

[RitchCraft]

That's one of the main reasons I offer to set up my friends and family with ad blockers. I loathe having to use/borrow a system without ad blocking. Just as an example, got to a news site like CNN.COM with a fresh browser. Then, revisit the site with ad blocking installed. Truly mind blowing at the difference.

Show of hands

[PPH]

How many people use a search engine or just click on a banner ad to find their current bank?

Re:

[swm]

My wife.
To get to homedepot.com, my wife types Home Depo into Google and then clicks on the top hit.
The top hit is always an ad.
Sometimes that ad links to homedepot.com
Sometimes that ad links to a malware site that locks up your browser and demands that you buy some "antivirus" product.
I finally manged to explain to her that Google ads go to whomever is currently paying Google the most money for your search terms.
You don't know who that is, so you should never click on a Google ad.

MSI

[GrahamJ]

The brand in question is MSI.