It has been reported that security researchers have spotted an intriguing malware campaign designed to increase the search engine rankings of spam websites under the control of threat actors.
I often tell people to look up official websites and contact information for organisations on Google rather than trusting links and information in emails. An attack like this would undermine my advice. If spammers manage to rank their links higher than legitimate sites in Google search results, people will implicitly trust them. They might enter a password or payment information on those sites without a second thought, and the attackers can cash out or launch further attacks from there.
I often tell people to look up official websites and contact information for organisations on Google rather than trusting links and information in emails. An attack like this would undermine my advice. If spammers manage to rank their links higher than legitimate sites in Google search results, people will implicitly trust them. They might enter a password or payment information on those sites without a second thought, and the attackers can cash out or launch further attacks from there.