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Typing these six words into Google can make you a target for cybercriminals

Cybercriminals have developed a new way to recover Internet users' personal information with a method that is as easy as it is devastating.

It's a simplistic but effective method, which leaves you wondering about other formulas that could be used to steal your data. Do not write “Are Bengal Cats legal in Australia?” (Are Bengal cats legal in Australia?), on the Google search bar. Cybersecurity company SOPHOS has published an urgent warning on its website, urging people not to type these six words into their search engines.

In fact, victims would have seen their personal information stolen after clicking on fraudulent links that appear at the top of the page after this innocuous search.

And this is also the strong point of this manipulation. All you have to do is do a simplistic and accessible search to get trapped.

“Victims are often tricked into clicking on malicious adware or links disguised as legitimate marketing, or in this case, a legitimate Google search,” explains SOPHOS.

A real danger for Australians

Currently, dangerous links only appear in search results when the word “Australia” is included. So this causes more cases of cyberattacks for Australian residents.

Once users click on a search result, their personal information is stolen through a program called Gootloader.

This technique, for the moment only linked to the key words mentioned above, could however be expanded to a more important prism.

Cybercriminals are increasingly infiltrating innocuous Google searches using a tactic known as “SEO poisoning,” according to SOPHOS.

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