Even before the first user could buy the latest and upcoming Apple technology, the iPad, cybercriminals are already making profits from it by taking advantage of its popularity.

Trend Micro threat engineers today found some malicious search results while looking for information related to the announcement of the Apple tablet.

These poisoned search results turned out to be related to the never-ending blackhat search engine optimization (SEO) FAKEAV campaigns. When clicked, the search results lead to the download of a rogue antivirus software, which Trend Micro detects as TROJ_FAKEAV.EAM.

Since Apple announced when the iPad will be made available to consumers, it has been one of the hottest topics circulating the Web today. And cybercriminals are not just about to let this slide. With the growing user anticipation for this new product, it is most likely that many users will be victimized by the latest FAKEAV attack. Users are thus advised to be wary of malicious links and to instead go to reputable news sites to get the latest information about the iPad.

Trend Micro is continuously working to protect users from this threat and to provide more information about this latest FAKEAV SEO attack.

Update as of January 27, 2010, 11:50 p.m. (GMT +8:00):

When executed, TROJ_FAKEAV.EAM displays a professional-looking graphical user interface (GUI) to supposedly install the software. Then it displays fake infection alerts. Should the user choose to clean his/her system to rid it of supposed infections, the Trojan will display the following page, which could lead to a phishing page should the user opt to buy the FAKEAV.

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