Blog spammers hack archive.org

by Brian Turner

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Blog spammers have exploited a vulnerability in the archive.org website, in order to redirect users to paid-for pharmaceuticals listings.

The practice has unfortunately become increasingly common, with innocent websites being hacked or otherwise exploited in order to try and capture traffic from Google.

The method arises because Google Search has an element in its ranking algorthm that prefers established websites that are seen as “authoritative”.

If an established website is hacked or exploited, spammers can then leverage the website’s natural strong rankings in Google to capture more traffic for advertising leads.

The method of exploiting third-party websites has become especially popular in the pharmaceuticals industry, especially from organised criminal gangs in Russia.

Platinax News has previously reported hos the Donald Trump and National Exhibition Centre websites have been hacked for these reasons, and has now identified that archive.org is simply the latest in a long string of victims.

The exploit can be found by adding:

archive.org/details/ephedrine

to a http://www. address in a browser address bar.

A page at archive.org shows as normal, then redirects to a third party site - mttdir.com - that exists solely to promote paid listings.

WARNING: Bloggers are warned that directly linking to both the affect archive.org page and the mttdir.com site will help promote the interests of the Russian spammers.

In the meantime, Platinax has notified archive.org of the exploit, and hopefully the issue will be swiftly resolved.

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Story link: Blog spammers hack archive.org

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