Pharmacy spammers abuse Google’s good name

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A pharmacy spam campaign has stolen Google’s brand identity in a bid to snare web users.

The spammers were seen promoting an online pharmacy supposedly accredited by the search giant, MessageLabs found.

“This is obvious brand hijacking: Google does not host or approve any pharmacy sites,” said Paul Wood, MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst at Symantec Hosted Services, in a blog post.

“This type of brand hijacking is a serious problem for well-known brands and can harm their reputation, as users might wrongly associate the nuisance factor of receiving such email with the brand.”

A Google spokesperson said the firm had seen its brand being ripped off by spammers before.

“Google has a track record of fighting similar types of scams, and we also recommend that users carefully review online offers that look too good to be true before entering any of their information,” the spokesperson said.

Targets were sent messages promoting a hair-loss prevention drug and a link, which directed users to the spammer’s blog, where a purportedly Google-sponsored pharmacy was advertised.

Symantec automatically blocked more than 250 similar spam-created blogs over just two days.

The image below shows how the Google logo was changed so the two ‘o’ letters were replaced by tablet images. Wood noted how such logo manipulation was now more plausible, given the search giant’s now famous doodles that celebrate notable dates.

"It is likely that the spammer wants to capitalise on Google's universally known name to add legitimacy to their products," Wood added.

"With Google's increasing diverse product range, spammers are perhaps hoping that a fake Google-accredited pharmacy will be plausible to some recipients."

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