Fergie's Tech Blog

Australia: Servers Hacked to Boost Google Ranking

Mahesh Sharma writes on Australian IT:

Australian web hosting company's servers have been hacked, with attackers embedding malicious code to generate "link farms" on its customers' websites.

Link farming is the process of exchanging reciprocal links with websites in order to increase search engine optimisation, according to internet encyclopedia [Wikipedia].

Melbourne-based MD Web Hosting confirmed that over the past two weeks it's been the victim of hacking attacks from IP addresses that originated from Russia and Turkey.

"Obviously some companies buy the services of these Russians to find vulnerable websites," Tom Najda, MD Web Hosting business services manager, said.

"These link farms were linking back to pharmaceutical websites which are obviously looking to boost their Google ranking," he said.

Attackers were able to gain access to around five servers which didn't have the correct security profiles. The problem was compounded by the fact that the company's IP blocking and firewalls were not up to scratch, Mr Najda said.

More here.

Note: Hmmm. I wonder what Russians he could be referring to? -ferg

posted by Fergie @ 12/19/2007 06:47:00 PM