Fraudsters are abusing official European Union platforms to advertise 'pirate' sites. The ads come in the form of keyword-filled PDFs that have now made it to the top of search engine results. The ads link to dubious platforms that appear to use fake hacking promises to lure people to malicious sites.
The European Commission is no stranger to tackling the problem of online piracy.
Europe's governing body facilitates hacking investigation and helps organize volunteer anti-piracy programs agreements. In addition, he publishes his own biannual list of notorious pirate sites.
Most of these efforts are aimed at tackling external problems, but we learned this week that the EU also has a hacking problem within its own ranks, one that deserves immediate attention.
Scammers exploit the websites of the European Union
It turns out that scammers have started abusing the official website of the European Commission to advertise dubious 'pirate' sites. These announcements come in the form of PDF files that are uploaded through public portals in the EU.
The abuse is widespread and affects a variety of platforms. These include the Commission's โJoin upโ which bills itself as the โone stop shop for free, open and interoperable digital government ICT solutionsโ.
Other sections of the official European Union site are also affected, including the European Union Observatory for Nanomaterials (ONESELF), the European Chemical Society (CHECK), and the European community of adult learning professionals (EPALE).
Thousands of 'hacking' ads
TorrentFreak has found thousands of fraudulent PDF files on these sites that advertise 'free' access to copies of recent movies such as Black Adam, Nope, Enola Holmes and Vesper. The documents are full of keywords, including the names of popular pirate sites like 123movies and Fmovies.
Below is one example, but there are many others in circulation, all inviting people to click on the image that has an embedded link.
โAre you looking to download or watch the new Nope online? No, it is available for free streaming of 123 movies. No, full movie streaming is free here! Just click play below and enjoy streaming Nope online, all without registration or credit card required!
The links we follow point to gatto.fun, which looks like a hacking site. However, streaming or downloading anything seems impossible. Instead, it redirects to other fraudulent URLs that are labeled as malicious by various antivirus companies.
It's not uncommon for scammers to lure people with fake pirated content, but these ads are not commonly seen on government websites.
The European Commission did not immediately respond to our request. (see update at bottom) to comment, but now you are aware of the problem as some of the PDF files have began to disappear. That being said, there are plenty left available at the time of writing this article.
It's not immediately clear how the scammers uploaded these PDFs. It seems likely that they used public charge features, rather than hacking into the European Union sites.
The EU Joinup initiative currently informs visitors that it is it is no longer possible to create new accounts. In part, this could be a temporary measure in response to the recent influx of scammers.
seo gold
Scammers have struck gold by exploiting EU websites. These official portals are seen as authoritative by search engines like Google. As a result, fraudulent PDFs are now among the top results for various hacking-related queries.
For example, when we searched for "watch vesper 2022 online free", a fraudulent PDF on the European Chemicals Society website was the top result on Google.
It is unknown how many people fall for these dubious advertisements. Most people will probably recognize scams right away. Then again, it only takes a few victims to make it worthwhile for scammers.
To update: A spokesperson for the European Commission informs us that they are aware of the problems.
โWe have identified the source of the incident. Platform stakeholders have already taken the necessary measures, such as deleting suspicious files and blocking further upload attempts.โ
โWe are closely monitoring the situation and continue to scan websites for suspicious files. We cannot comment further on the ongoing investigations."
โOverall, we must emphasize that we take cybersecurity very seriously and have strict policies in place to protect our infrastructure, data and devices. We investigate every incident."
TorrentFreak confirmed that the issue still persists. Some suspicious PDF files continue to arrive today. Perhaps the Commission should consider a load filter.
