MS Security Center search results poisoned

You would think that the Microsoft Safety and Security Center is the one place where you would be safe from malicious links, and you would be wrong.

According to GFI’s Alex Eckelberry, cyber criminals have managed to poison its search results with redirect sites to adult content and malware.

“In other words, blackhat SEOs are seeding illegimate search results within the Microsoft search results. Pretty tricky and impressive,” he explains. “There are a number of ways this could be done (for example, using the ability on the site to Twitter a search result).”

Once the victim lands on such a site, he is asked to install a new codec in order to see the adult video. But, in this case, the codec is actually a Bing-branded search toolbar/adware by the name of Zugo.

Microsoft has responded immediately to the tip and has disabled the search option on the Microsoft Safety and Security Center, but the sites can still be searched for via Google.