Slashdot: Google Gave Top Spot For 'Home Depot' Searches to a Malicious Ad

Google Gave Top Spot For 'Home Depot' Searches to a Malicious Ad
Published on February 01, 2021 at 08:04AM
"A malicious Home Depot advertising campaign is redirecting Google search visitors to tech support scams," claims Bleeping Computer. Slashdot reader nickwinlund77 shares their report: BleepingComputer searched for 'home depot' and was shown the malicious advertisement on our first try. Even worse, the ad is the top spot in the research result, making it more likely to be clicked... [T]he ad clearly states it's for www.homedepot.com, and hovering over it shows the site's legitimate destination URL. However, when visitors click on the ad, they will be redirected through various ad services until eventually they are redirected to a tech support scam. Ultimately, the visitor will land at a page showing an incredibly annoying "Windows Defender - Security Warning' tech support scam. This scam will repeatedly open the Print dialog box, as shown below, which prevents the visitor from easily closing the page. To make it more difficult for security professionals to diagnose these ads, it appears that they only redirect to the scam once every 24 hours to the same IP address. Once a tech support scam is shown by clicking on the ad, subsequent clicks bring visitors to the legitimate site.

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