Security News > 2023 > August > Sneaky Amazon Google ad leads to Microsoft support scam

A legitimate-looking ad for Amazon in Google search results redirects visitors to a Microsoft Defender tech support scam that locks up their browser.
Clicking on the Google ad will redirect the person to a tech support scam pretending to be an alert from Microsoft Defender stating that you are infected with the ads(exe).
These tech support scams will automatically go into full-screen mode, making it hard to get out of the page without terminating the Google Chrome process.
A demonstration of today's fake Amazon Google ad leading to the tech support scam site can be seen below.
BleepingComputer reached out to both Google and Amazon regarding this malvertising but has not received a response at the time of this publication.
Google advertisements have been heavily abused over the past year by other threat actors to distribute malware, which sometimes leads to ransomware attacks.
News URL
Related news
- Malvertising Scam Uses Fake Google Ads to Hijack Microsoft Advertising Accounts (source)
- Google Ads Users Targeted in Malvertising Scam Stealing Credentials and 2FA Codes (source)
- Microsoft tests Edge Scareware Blocker to block tech support scams (source)
- ⚡ THN Weekly Recap: Google Secrets Stolen, Windows Hack, New Crypto Scams and More (source)
- Google expands Android AI scam detection to more Pixel devices (source)
- Google Rolls Out AI Scam Detection for Android to Combat Conversational Fraud (source)