14 DAY TRIAL // Users looking for information about the new Twilight Eclipse movie are advised to treat the search results with extreme care, as they might lead to malicious websites. The black hat search engine optimization (BHSEO) campaigns have been so successful that for some Eclipse-related keywords over half of the results are currently poisoned.
Cyber criminals don't miss any occasion to infect more users with malware and increase their profits. Events like natural disasters, armed conflicts, celebrity deaths, that capture the attention of a lot of people always present themselves as good opportunities to do this.
Eclipse, the third installment in Twilight saga is no exception to this rule. With a fan base in the hundreds of millions, the movie, which officially opened in theaters last night, is clearly a hot subject on the Internet at the moment, with interested people searching for reviews or exchanging opinions on social networking websites.
Security researchers warn that web searches related to the movie have spiked during the last 24 hours, but so did the BHSEO campaigns poisoning the results. Search keywords like "Twilight New Moon Eclipse Wikipedia", "Twilight Eclipse Wiki" or "How Long Is Eclipse The Movie going to be" are amongst the most likely to lead users on a bad site.
The most common type of threat distributed via search result poisoning, are rogue programs from the FAKEAV family of malware. Also referred to as scareware, these applications masquerade as antivirus programs and scare the users into paying a license fee by displaying fake security alerts. If you end up on a website claiming that you are infected with malware, close your browser down and scan your computer with an antivirus program you know and trust.
A lot of people are also interested in seeing movies for free on the Internet as soon as they come out in theaters, which is not only illegal, but in the vast majority of cases lead to subscription and affiliate marketing scams. The "Watch twilight eclipse movie for free" search phrase was on the 20th position in Google's hot trends for today in the United States.
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