SEO poisoning

SEO Poisoning (also known as search poisoning) is a cybercriminal technique that manipulates search engine rankings to promote malicious websites for a given keyword. It can be defined as the process of creating malicious websites that rank highly in search engine results for specific keywords, with the intention of deceiving users into visiting these malicious sites.

SEO Poisoning works by creating websites with targeted content with high-volume keywords. These websites often use legitimate SEO techniques, such as generating backlinks, to improve their ranking. The goal is for these malicious pages to appear in the top results when users search for specific terms, increasing the likelihood that they will click on the malicious link.

When it comes to cybercriminal activities, SEO poisoning is typically used to distribute malware, more specifically using drive-by downloads. These malware families include: loaders, infostealers, banking trojans, RATs.