Black Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), often referred as negative SEO, is a term that covers sabotage techniques aiming to reduce a web site's ranking in search engine results. Black SEO techniques are typically used in business and socio-political contexts, such as information warfare.
The presentation will focus on the use of these techniques to discredit a web site by making it vanish from the major search engine result pages. The discussion will also cover how to exploit common web application vulnerabilities such as Cross Site Scripting, SQL injection and other popular exploitation methods to leverage black SEO attacks. Examples will be included to demonstrate each method of exploitation, and how the vulnerabilities can be used to impact revenues and the reputation of business and political targets.
Black SEO attacks represent a unique class of threats and from a security perspective, any threat which can incur a potential loss should be considered a risk. So far, some of these techniques have only existed as a discussion topic in the SEO industry. Consequently, the intent of my presentation is to bring this complex topic to light to the security community.