February 03, 2026 11:46 am (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
After Budget mayhem, bulls return: Sensex, Nifty stage sharp recovery | Dalai Lama wins first Grammy at 90 | Firing outside Rohit Shetty’s Mumbai home: 4 arrested, Bishnoi Gang link emerges | Female suicide attackers emerge at centre of deadly BLA assaults that rocked Pakistan’s Balochistan | Delhi blast: Probe reveals doctors' module planned attacks on global coffee chain | Begging bowl: Pakistan PM says he feels “ashamed” seeking loans abroad | Epstein Files shocker! Zohran Mamdani’s mother Mira Nair mentioned in latest tranche | Bill Gates contracted STD after sex with Russian women? Epstein Files make explosive, unverified claims | Big setback for Modi govt: Supreme Court stays controversial UGC Equity Regulations 2026 amid student protests | ‘Mother of all deals’: PM Modi says India–EU FTA is for 'ambitious India'
Hackers are targeting intern users when they are typing these six words on search engine. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Hackers are targeting people when they are typing these six words on search engine

| @indiablooms | Nov 11, 2024, at 11:27 pm

People searching for the sentence "Are Bengal cats legal in Australia?" on the internet are often facing cyber-attacks of an unusual kind, alerted a firm named Sophos.

Sophos, a cybersecurity firm, has asked people not to search for the words on search engines.

According to reports, people who are searching for the sentence on the internet are often seeing that their personal information is getting stolen after they click on fraudulent links that appear on the top of the page.

"GootLoader is known for using search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning for its initial access. Victims are often enticed into clicking on malicious adware or links disguised as legitimate marketing, or in this case a legitimate Google search directing the user to a compromised website hosting a malicious payload masquerading as the desired file," read the Sophos website.

"If the malware remains undetected on the victim’s machine, it makes way for a second-stage payload known as GootKit, which is a highly evasive info stealer and remote access Trojan (RAT) used to establish a persistent foothold in the victim’s network environment.  GootKit can be used to deploy ransomware or other tools, including Cobalt Strike, for follow-on exploitation," the website said.

According to reports, the dangerous links are currently appearing only when the word 'Australia' is added when users are searching the engine.

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.