Scareware scammers booby-trap worried Koreans

Korean language search terms for the cross-border clash between North and South Korea are already been poisoned so that scareware portals appear prominently in results.

The use of black hat search engine optimisation techniques is designed to expose surfers to fake anti-virus scans that warn on non-existent threats in a bid to trick surfers into buying worse than useless software.

Cybercrooks behind the scam often latch onto breaking news events, such as last week's royal engagement announcement, and the latest attack shows much the same tactics are now been applied well outside the English speaking world.

Searches in Korean for search terms related to Tuesday's shelling between North and South Korea are liable to lead to pages that redirect surfers to scareware download packages that pose as either an ActiveX control or a Flash Player update.

The ActiveX control is served up to surfers using IE while the fake Flash update goes to fans of Firefox, as explained in a blog post by Trend Micro here. ®