ITPEC FE Subject A October 2024 Question 32
Which of the following is the name of an attack where manipulation is made to display a malicious website near the top of the results on a search website?
Explanation
SEO poisoning — abusing search engine optimization so that a malicious site appears near the top of search results.
Attackers stuff pages with popular or trending keywords, build networks of links and otherwise game the ranking algorithm, so their malicious site ranks highly for searches users really make. Users trust the top results and click through to malware or scams.
Answer (c)
Why not others:
- •(a) Cross-site scripting — injects script through a vulnerable web application so it runs in other users' browsers on that site; it does not affect search rankings
- •(b) DNS cache poisoning — plants a forged record in a DNS server's cache so a legitimate domain name resolves to the attacker's IP address; the redirection happens at name resolution, not in search results
- •(d) Social engineering — manipulating people directly (pretexting, shoulder surfing, fake phone calls), a broad category rather than the name of the ranking-manipulation attack
Key rule: Name a poisoning attack by what it corrupts: SEO poisoning corrupts search rankings, DNS cache poisoning corrupts name resolution.
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