September 3, 2007

NEC group website ‘hacked’ by Russian Spammers

by Brian Turner

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NEC group website 'hacked'

Platinax has discovered that the NEC Group website has been hacked, with pages inserted onto the site to promote pharmaceuticals sales.

A specific search on Google reveals a small number of pages added to the site, which offer to sell a variety of pharmaceutical products, including soma, phentermine, tramadol, xanax and fioricet. For example, as seen on the Google Cache of this page for “buy prozac”.

A Javascript redirect sends visitors to these pages directly to an advertising clicks page at buypillz.com, a domain claiming to be registered in the Ukraine.

This form of hacking attack is becoming increasingly common, as hackers try to leverage the strong search engine positioning of established branded websites.

The result is that pages promoting a specific company or activity gains strong visibility on Google, and other search engines, providing a potentially lucrative revenue stream for the interests being promoted by the hacker.

This is especially when the unauthorised pages are inserted are specifically made to be search engine friendly for valuable commercial keywords.

The practice has already been roundly condemned by the Search Engine Optimisation industry, who do not recommend illegal activity to promote a website on Google.

However, the practice is becoming increasing common, as a combination of high affiliate payouts and the difficulties of tracking hackers, creates a lucrative underworld market.

The issue was highlighted dramatically last year, when the website of the Trump Organisation was filled with a raft of pages promoting pharmaceuticals, resulting in Google Searches such as “Donald Trump small penis“.

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Story link: NEC group website ‘hacked’ by Russian Spammers

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