A malicious ad campaign is underway in Google Search results that lead users to fake Amazon support sites and tech support scams.
A security researcher reached out to BleepingComputer today about search keywords such as "amazon prime" and "amazon prime customer support" that leads to ads pretending to be Amazon Prime support.
For example, in the image below simply searching for "amazon prime" resulted in a fake and shady-looking support ad hosted on sites.google.com.
BleepingComputer performed these searches and was able to verify that these malicious ads were being displayed.
When a user clicks on the ad they will be brought to a page that attempts to impersonate Amazon and includes a phone number to call to receive help. This number is 1-844-325-7794, which is different from the legitimate Amazon support number of 1 (888) 280-4331.
When BleepingComputer attempted to call the number, we received a busy signal each time we called.
In addition to Amazon support scams, other ads discovered by the researcher were for the search keywords "my account" and "login" that lead to a variety of different tech support scams like the one below.
Clicking on these ads lead to tech support scams located on sites such as sites.google.com, Azure, and other providers.
Now many of you may look at these ads and wonder how anyone could fall for them.
The reality is that there are many people, especially older people, who are not comfortable with computers, the Internet, and receiving support via online chat and email.
These types of people are more apt to search for a support phone number and then click on a link without properly analyzing the ad for suspicious characteristics.
Users need to be very careful of the sites that they click on in search results because in many cases they are not vetted properly and can lead to malicious sites.
This is especially true during the holiday or right after as users are commonly looking for support numbers for presents that they have received.
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