Hackers exploit Oscars to spread scareware attack: Sophos

According to IT security and control firm Sophos, hackers are
exploiting the popularity of Oscar Awards ceremony to infect the
computers of unsuspecting computer users. As netizens are searching
the Web for information and gossip about the Academy Award winners,
'Oscars Winners' has become one of the most commonly searched
phrases. To cash on it hackers have created webpages stuffed with
content which appears to be related to the Oscars-but are really
designed to infect visiting computers. Sophos has detected malicious
links such as Mal/FakeAVJs-A and Troj/FakeAV-AXS.

Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant for Sophos said,
“Hackers have created malicious sites that appear on the first page
of search engine results, tempting users to click on them. However,
if you visit the links you can expect to see bogus warnings that your
computer is infected with viruses, that try and trick you into
downloading dangerous clean-up software or handing over your credit
card details. Scareware or fake anti-virus attacks are commonly used
by the cyber criminals and they generally create malicious links
using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.