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Malware & SEO hacking hits UK government, schools & universities

Hacking websites to insert malware and links to other websites isn’t a new practice but thanks to the negligent actions of many schools, universities and government departments it’s becoming more widespread.

Websites using outdated software are full of gaping holes which, once found, can be exploited across dozens of different sites. The latest study finds that hundreds of school, government and university sites have been affected with schools blindly linking to viagra sites from their homepages.

Hacked

How to see the hacked pages

You can see some of the hundreds of sites by performing the following search queries similar to the ones below on Google.

The hackers quite often make the text invisible on the page so you may need to click on the “Cached” link offered in the Google results and then the “Text-only version” of the cached page. An example is here.

Thanks Ritchie from Online Backup Technology for the tip.

BY Patrick Altoft AT 5:00pm ON Tuesday, 9 June 2009

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3 and has worked in the SEO industry for over 10 years. With experience across some of the worlds largest brands as well as startup businesses Patrick is well known in the industry and speaks regularly at the major SEO conferences and events. Follow Patrick on Twitter or Google+

Comments

  • http://charts.jorgecamoes.com Jorge Camoes

    It’s not in UK only. I’ve also noticed that recently here in Portugal. They seem to be exploiting a Moodle vulnerability.

  • http://www.gunjanpandya.com Gunjan Pandya

    Hey Patrick,

    Before 8 months when I was handling drugs related website at that time this kind of problems noticed in US based education website and lots of Spams in Google.com SERP…

    At that time there was no Spam in Google.co.uk… but now they started to spoil Google.co.uk.. today I just checked in Google.co.uk on other drugs related keywords… I noticed most of the websites which comes in the listing are Forums Profile page, Hacked website etc.

  • http://www.seojobsfinder.com/ Or Hillel

    The viagra SEO’s will always find ways to drop links .gov .edu and more sites. That the only way the can build links to there site, it’s so hard to find good links in the viagra filed so they all go to the black hat side.

  • http://www.seo-doctor.co.uk SEODr

    Nice little advanced operator trick to see those.

  • http://www.news.software.coop/ MJ Ray

    Could a lot of this be Gumblar-related? I’ve been pressing for securer hosting for years, but it’s been a hard sell. Yesterday, a big web hosting provider in my sector (not mine) announced they’d been hit and thousands of websites disrupted. Maybe this just got to be an easier sell.

  • Pingback: June 10th 2009 - Wednesday Online Marketing Wrap Up | SEO & Online Reputation Management Blog | One Result

  • JamesD

    Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting

  • http://www.blogreview.notjohnchow.com Not John Chow

    Everyones greatest fear! Too bad that we cannot make all of our sites hack proof but that may be too Utopean!

  • http://digg.com/users/fromfromto Fang

    Can google do anything about it?
    I’am in china. These things happened in Chinese government website too!

  • http://www.takefreeonlinesurveysformoney.com/ Paid Survey Sites

    It really makes you think about doing whatever you can to protect your site. I usually think that something like this wouldn’t happen to me, seeing that government, school, and university sites are being hacked. I don’t think someone would want to waste time hacking my site, but you never know. It goes to show that everything that can be done to protect your site must be done.

  • http://www.coppockmedia.com Web Design Wales

    I wonder how long it will take before Google revises it’s inbound link “juice” plan…

    if links weren’t worth diddly squat anymore the majority of spam would stop… however there would have to be something to replace it and thus the spam process will begin again.

    Jen

  • http://www.artviper.de SEO München

    Since antivirus is working pretty well and hackers cannot hack PC's anymore with good antivirus, they are now hacking websites to spread their virus, but google webmaster tools have the solution for this problem.

  • http://www.im3.co.uk/seo/ SEO history

    This problem has gone global actually, not only in UK, looks like the educational and government institution don’t really manage their websites too seriously, today you can find those bad links almost everywhere.

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