SEO Poisoning

SEO Poisoning is a cyberattack technique where malicious actors manipulate search engine results pages (SERPs) to promote websites that distribute malware, phishing pages, or other harmful content. Unlike typical black hat SEO aimed at generating revenue through rankings, SEO poisoning is a security threat designed to exploit users' trust in search results. Attackers use various methods: compromising legitimate high-authority websites to inject malicious content and links, creating networks of optimized malicious pages targeting trending or high-volume search queries, and exploiting vulnerabilities in content management systems. The malicious pages often use cloaking to display different content to search engine crawlers (appearing legitimate) and to users (delivering malware payloads or phishing forms). Google actively combats SEO poisoning through Safe Browsing, automated malware detection, and manual reviews. The technique is particularly dangerous during events that generate spikes in search volume (natural disasters, celebrity news, software releases), as attackers create timely malicious pages before legitimate sources can cover the topic.