Malwarebytes’ Jovi Umawing says that, landing on the infected pages of the Philippine government’s portal does not deliver any malware to the computer of the visitor; as such, there is no danger of getting the machine infected with bad code.
Visiting the affected pages contributes to increasing the page rank of the website providing gambling opportunities. This is called blackhat SEO (search engine optimization).
This means that its popularity will increase, as it will appear higher up in related search results, leading to more visitors and more profit to its operators.
The infected pages on the Department of Agriculture are “Contact Us,” “Advisory Banner,” “About Us,” department’s mission/vision page and the one presenting the history of the department.
Malwarebytes believes that the official website has been hacked by an intruder who planted the malicious code. All visitors are advised to avoid accessing the aforementioned pages; some antivirus products detect malicious activity and will prevent loading of the website, too.
The security company has already contacted the administrators of the affected website about the presence of the nefarious code, and they should be able to remove it in the shortest time possible.