Computer users looking for information on Google about the legality of owning Bengal cats are falling victim to a peculiar cyber attack, as reported by Tengri Life referencing the New York Post.
The cybersecurity firm SOPHOS has issued an urgent warning on its website, advising users against entering these six words into search engines.
Individuals searching Google for the answer to "Are Bengal cats legal in Australia?" have become targets of the cyber attack.
"Victims clicked on malicious adware or links disguised as legitimate marketing or, in this case, as legitimate Google searches," explains SOPHOS.
Currently, dangerous links appear in search results only when the word "Australia" is included.
Once users click on a search result that appears legitimate, their personal information, such as banking details, is stolen using a program known as Gootloader.
According to SOPHOS, the program can also lock users out of their own computers.
Experts note that the search query "Bengal cats" is, on one hand, relatively niche, but on the other hand, completely harmless, which is why scammers chose this query for stealing personal data.
SOPHOS states that cybercriminals are increasingly using innocuous Google search queries as part of a tactic known as "SEO poisoning."
Specialists describe this practice as "a cunning trick by which criminals manipulate search engine results to push their controlled websites to the top of the page."
SOPHOS urges anyone who believes they may have fallen victim to SEO poisoning to change their passwords as soon as possible.
Which countries are most frequently targeted by cyber attacks: the American company Microsoft has published a report on cybersecurity, one of the topics of which is the growing interaction between the authorities of certain countries and cybercriminals.