Google Doodle searches conceal malicious antivirus

Tuesday Google visitors got malicious instead of search results clicking Google's front-page Doodle sketch, dedicated to 150th anniversary of the birth of Esperanto's creator L. L. Zamenhof.

Searchers were taken to to dodgy advertisements or pages that tried to trick visitors into thinking their computers were infected and paying for fake antivirus software.

This case reflected the latest example of just how good scammers have become at manipulating Google search results.

These results remained steadily in the top 5 to 10 search results for people who clicked on the Google doodle link even today, and often filled up about half of the first few pages of results.

For months now, scammers've followed Google's Trending Topics section and then used search engine optimization techniques to push hacked Web pages up to the top of Google's search results. They flood hacked pages with keywords that are then recorded by Google's search engine.

There are several ways fraudsters getting their code on legitimate Web sites - lately they've focused on stealing FTP login credentials.