ZeroFox Intelligence Brief - Social Engineering Series: Search Engine Optimization Poisoning

Product Serial: B-2024-03-22a

TLP:CLEAR

ZeroFox's Social Engineering series breaks down aspects of the threat into digestible reports and outlines defensive actions that can be taken to combat it. Part four of this series takes a deep dive into search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, why and how threat actors do it, and how the threat can best be mitigated.

Standing Intelligence Requirements

Social Engineering, Phishing, Search Engine Optimization Poisoning

For the most up-to-date list of ZeroFox’s Intelligence Requirements, please visit:

https://cloud.zerofox.com/intelligence/advisories/14956

Link to Download

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Key Findings

While a legitimate practice, SEO is also used for malicious purposes. This is referred to as SEO poisoning, or “black hat SEO,” and like legitimate SEO, it usually relies upon the premise that users of search engines find the top SERP results the most credible and appropriate to their search, increasing the likelihood they will be visited.
SEO Poisoning is leveraged by a wide array of threat actors, such as financially-motivated cyber criminals, politically-motivated state actors, ideologically-motivated hacktivists, and organizations seeking a competitive advantage.
The threat from SEO poisoning to organizations and individuals will almost certainly increase in 2024 as threat actors continually develop new social engineering methods to entice victims and deploy malicious payloads.