security Cybercriminals impersonating brands using search engine advertisement services to defraud users

[News]

'Tis the season for bad actors and cybercriminals it seems. The FBI is warning the public that cybercriminals are using search engine advertisement services to impersonate brands and direct users to malicious sites that host ransomware and steal login credentials and other financial information.

Cybercriminals purchase advertisements that appear within internet search results using a domain that is similar to an actual business or service. When a user searches for that business or service, these advertisements appear at the very top of search results with the minimum distinction between an advertisement and an actual search result. These advertisements link to a webpage that looks identical to the impersonated business’s official webpage...

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[DealMaker1]

Google Ads are doing their best to curb this activity. It's an unfortunate byproduct of using domains. But realize the people who are doing this are getting very (very!) short term gains, and very small ones at that. Most likely they will be banned after a couple very small gains and then it is over for them.

I don't know why they attempt this. But perhaps they can't see the long- term picture.

 

[lock]

I have seen this for some time with combining domain names eg bingoogle are (not) together selling links.

 

[noneisnone]

Google Ads are doing their best to curb this activity. It's an unfortunate byproduct of using domains. But realize the people who are doing this are getting very (very!) short term gains, and very small ones at that. Most likely they will be banned after a couple very small gains and then it is over for them.

I don't know why they attempt this. But perhaps they can't see the long- term picture.

if cloaking is done right it can last for a very long time bringing you in allot of profits before google manually reviews the landing page(even after manual review some advanced cloakers can overcome the manual review)

also it is never over for them google ads accounts are pretty cheap and with already charged credit meaning i can buy a google ads account with 500$ in spending credit for less than 200$ or so

 

[DealMaker1]

So why are you cloaking? That means you don't have a good idea and are impulsively looking for short-term gains. Good. Do it.

 

[noneisnone]

So why are you cloaking?

who said i was ?

 

[DealMaker1]

"if cloaking is done right". So, that's about it.

 

[noneisnone]

"if cloaking is done right". So, that's about it.

take me to jail Sherlock

 

[DealMaker1]

So maybe here is the better way for those who feel the need to pirate a brand in a domain name. How about contact the company and tell them about your domain and the site you have built to positively advertise their company and become an affiliate. The worst they can say is no. If you have good adcopy and a good domain, most likely they will say yes. So why cloak? You are just proving you have no good ideas of your own and you need to make money on the coat-tails of others.

 

[DealMaker1]

take me to jail Sherlock

You are already in jail.