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X-Labs
March 11, 2010

Searching for Corey Haim Leads to Rogue AV

Forcepoint

Websense Security Labs™ ThreatSeeker™ Network has discovered that search terms related to Corey Haim have become the latest target for Blackhat SEO poisoning attacks.

Corey Haim, 1980s teen idol actor and a star of such famous movies as "The Lost Boys" and "License to Drive", was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment at the age of only 38 on Wednesday.

Whether it's a natural disaster or a death, Blackhats monitor and adapt to popular search trends. Not long after the sad news emerged, the search phrase "Corey Haim" became one of the hottest topics in Google trends.

Screenshot of the Google trend: 

Google Trend

Cybercriminals again jump at a chance to spread their rogue AVs. When users enter keywords such as "Corey Haim death" in Google, some of the results will lead them to download fake security software. The downloading FakeAV file has only 17% coverage from antivirus products.

Google searching results of "Corey Haim death" that lead to rogue AVs: 

Corey Haim

Websense Messaging and Websense Web Security customers are protected against this attack.

Forcepoint

Forcepoint-authored blog posts are based on discussions with customers and additional research by our content teams.

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