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| When Gambling Invades Classroom? How Online Betting Platforms Sneak into Educational Websites |
You click on a university website expecting to read about research, student activities, or admissions but suddenly, a strange banner pops up: “Bet and win big tonight!”
How Gambling Sites Infiltrate Educational Platforms
Most educational institutions, especially smaller ones, use open source content management systems (like WordPress, Joomla, or OJS for journals). While convenient, these systems can become easy targets when not properly secured.
Here’s how infiltration often happens:
1. Exploiting Vulnerable Plugins or Themes
Hackers scan educational sites for outdated plugins or weak admin passwords. Once they gain access, they quietly insert links or hidden pages pointing to gambling domains.
These pages often look like normal blog posts sometimes even mimicking site’s tone or logo but they’re actually SEO traps designed to funnel authority and backlinks to gambling networks.
2. Injecting Hidden Redirects
Some attackers add hidden scripts that redirect visitors to gambling portals after a few seconds or specific clicks. It’s subtle enough to go unnoticed by administrators, yet effective for spreading traffic.
3. Hijacking Abandoned Subdomains
Old or forgotten subdomains (like journal.university.edu or archive.school.ac.id) are goldmines for attackers. They exploit them to host gambling content that inherits credibility of an .edu or .ac.id domain.
Why Gambling Platforms Target Education Sites
At first glance, connection seems random. Why would a betting company care about a university website? Answer lies in SEO manipulation and social engineering.
