Then the hackers stepped in. By midday Tuesday, criminals began posting malicious Web pages that would pop up high on Google searches for PIFTS.exe.

"With parts of the Internet flustering over the Symantec / PIFTS.exe debacle, hackers have set out to poison search engines in an attempt to cash in on unsuspecting computer users," wrote Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with security vendor Sophos. Cluley said that three of the top five Google results for a pifts.exe search led to pages that redirected users to malicious Web pages, which tried to install fake antivirus software on victims' systems.

Late Tuesday afternoon, these malicious results were still turning up high in Google searches for PIFTS.exe.

"Of course, the fake anti-virus scan is not related to Symantec or the PIFTS.exe file," Cluley added. "It's just that the hackers are using the interest surrounding that file at the moment to generate traffic to their dangerous Web sites."