Can Google Be Trusted With SEO Anymore? The Mac Malware Case Study

Saurav Dawadi — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 10:58:00 +0000

Google built its empire on one promise: connect people with the information they need. But what happens when that promise becomes a liability? When the world’s most trusted search engine consistently serves malware as its top result, we need to ask an uncomfortable question: Can Google be trusted with SEO?

So lets start with an example here:

From this you can see the top result that comes when you type in the following. We can clearly see that this is a variant of AMOS (Atomic macOS Stealer).

What can AMOS do ?
Well AMOS has the capability to exfiltrate:

All saved passwords from browsers and Keychain
Cryptocurrency wallet credentials
Banking information
Session cookies (giving attackers direct access to your accounts)
Files from your Desktop and Documents folders
Now , Why does this work so well ?

Firstly , It’s on top of your google search. Must be the most legitimate one right ?

Secondly ,have a look at the domain similar to that of medium. Another run showed an article on dev.to , where most of the software engineering talks happen. So can trick you thinking into it’s legitimacy

Thirdly, the article appears as a helpful content.

And finally a myth that has been followed by many, I have a Mac , it’s unlikely to be vulnerable to viruses like the other OS devices (Well this can haunt you)
**
What to be on the lookout for ?**

So now in the world where sophisticated attacks are growing day by day , let’s be careful of few checks:

Don’t depend on sponsored result for system related issues? The one that paid for gets to be there and the until a check is perfomed or the result has been labeled malicious , it might be too late.

Secondly look at the domain properly, the domain name can be confusing

Now , sometimes the title give away, does it show urgency ? If yes, likely to be an attempt of malware

If somehow someone does fall into this trap, what to do ?

Disconnect from internet immediately
Don’t enter any passwords or financial information
Change all passwords from a different, clean device
Enable 2FA on all critical accounts
Monitor your accounts for unusual activity
Consider professional help: Apple Support or a cybersecurity specialist This attack represents a disturbing trend: malvertising (malicious advertising) is becoming more sophisticated and harder to detect. Google is playing whack-a-mole with these ads, but new ones appear daily. So it’s upto each one of us to be aware. The Time Google does act on this might be too little too late.

While many of us might see the technical side of it , I guess awareness regarding this is equally important

What can be done before ?
Well we all know the saying of prevention is better than cure, lets start with some action item :

Skip sponsored results for technical queries
Verify URLs carefully before clicking
Use built-in tools whenever possible
Keep macOS updated (security patches matter)
Enable FileVault (full disk encryption)
Practice healthy skepticism — if something feels off, it probably is

How Quality Assurance Engineers Can Strengthen Application Security

Saurav Dawadi — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 11:59:18 +0000

When we talk about Quality Assurance, the traditional approach is straightforward: Does input A lead to output B? But when you put on the hat of a QA engineer, you become professionally paranoid. You don’t just want to verify that input A produces output B. You want to discover what happens when it doesn’t.

Through my experience in both Quality Assurance and Security, I’ve observed something crucial: these two domains are far more intertwined than most realise. When you develop the mindset of breaking things, you’re already halfway to thinking like a security professional.

A Real-World Scenario: The Promo Code Problem
Let me illustrate this with a practical example.

Imagine your system is rolling out a promotional discount code for the holiday season, a one-time code exclusively for customers who’ve been on the platform for over a year.

The Traditional QA Approach
As a QA engineer, you’d start with the happy path:

Verify that only customers with 1+ year tenure are eligible
Confirm the discount applies successfully at checkout for eligible customers
Then you’d test the obvious edge cases:

What happens if a customer tries to apply the same code twice sequentially?
Most systems handle this well, the second attempt gets rejected because the code is already marked as used.

Test passed. Ship it, right?

The Security Lens: Where QA Meets Cybersecurity
Here’s where the security mindset diverges from traditional QA thinking.

The QA question: “Can I apply it twice sequentially?”
System response: No

The Security question: “Can I apply it twice simultaneously?”
System response: Potentially… Yes

This is a race condition vulnerability. If the database read operation (checking whether the code has been used) and the write operation (marking it as used) aren’t properly locked, two parallel requests can both pass the validation check before either one updates the database.

The result? The same promo code gets applied twice, bypassing business logic entirely.

How traditional vs threat driven QA conducts testing.
The Gap Between Quality and Security
Here’s the fundamental difference: QA engineers think like users. Attackers think like adversaries.

Traditional QA follows sequential logic mimicking how a normal user would interact with the system. One action, then the next. If something breaks along that path, we catch it.

But attackers don’t wait for their turn. They don’t follow the script. While we’re testing “What happens when I click this button twice?”, they’re exploiting race conditions, manipulating request timing, and probing the invisible gaps between database operations.

The mindset shift from QA to security isn’t about learning new tools; it’s about questioning the assumptions our tests are built on.

This is where QA engineers with security awareness become invaluable. You’re already testing edge cases and unexpected inputs. The next step is asking: What if those unexpected inputs arrive at unexpected times?

Forem: Saurav Dawadi

Can Google Be Trusted With SEO Anymore? The Mac Malware Case Study

How Quality Assurance Engineers Can Strengthen Application Security