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Stock Exchange hit by spam adverts

William Peebles — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 07:48:13 +0000

The London Stock exchange (LSE) website has been brought to its knees as a result of malware which has been loaded up on to the site. The malicious code came in the form of adverts which prompted visitors to download fake security software, and over three hundred pages on the site are thought to have been affected by the hacking, over the past three months.

Google’s safe browsing scheme discovered that of the thousand-plus pages scanned for malware, about a third were found to be infected. The LSE have informed users now that the site is safe again, and attributed the issue to a third party provider of advertisements on the site.

An expert in security found themselves totally compromised as a result of the malware, when logging in to the site this week, commenting: “I visited the LSE homepage to find out why some people reported that they could not access it. The site was blocked by Firefox, but accessible via Google’s Chrome browser. It seemed to work with Chrome but then a few seconds later, without having to click on anything, pop-ups started to appear.”

“I visited the site and it compromised my machine. The malicious code closed down several of the programmes I was using and stopped new ones being started. The machine fell victim even though it was updated with the latest batch of virus definitions earlier in the day. While I was fighting to regain control of the machine, the malware kicked off fake virus alerts in pop-up windows. One window was a fake security scanner which claimed it had detected lots of different malware on the PC.”

Graham Cluley, the senior technology consultant at Sophos, commented: “Our suspicion would be that it was the third-party advertising network running via the site that delivered the malware. This so-called ‘malvertising’ is big business for cyber criminals. If they are able to plant their poisonous adverts in the streams being used by major websites then it can spread their attacks far and wide. While many sites rely on third-parties to provide adverts, that can have its risks. Unfortunately when an infection does get through it’s likely that the users will blame the website, not the ad network.”

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Turning the tables on web criminals

Andre Jackson — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:02:02 +0000

It’s always satisfying to see the baddies getting beaten at their own game, and news today suggests that web criminals are just as at risk of malicious attacks online as the people they target with malware.

A recent study has discovered that the tools used by many cyber criminals are not very secure, because they are full of programming bugs and gaps which make them vulnerable to outside interference. Just as professional gardeners tend to have shabby back yards, and chefs bring a take-away home after work, it seems cyber criminals are not very good at safeguarding their software from attack.

Security experts are suggesting that it will be possible to exploit the vulnerabilities within attack tools, and turning them against those who are deploying them. The bugs in the software mean that security experts could establish which individuals were using the tools, and manipulate the software to launch counter attacks on the individuals behind the malicious activity.

Although a few cybercriminals programme their own tools, many use generic software (malware kits) that are available online. These programs bundle everything required to launch a malware attack in one handy kit.

French computer security researcher Laurent Oudot from Tehtri Security has analysed the inner workings of many of these malware kits to see how secure they are. He found that many kits which are the most popular, also have huge security loopholes which would make it easy to turn the tables and attack the attackers.

Exploiting these loopholes and vulnerabilities will give security experts an opportunity to gather information about the people behind malware attacks, identifying who they are, where they are located, and perhaps even confiscating their tools and equipment to prevent further criminal activity from taking place. Mr Oudot acknowledged that using the loopholes might “lead to legal issues” but said the research was done to “open new way to think about IT security, worldwide”.

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Spam Emails killing the Planet

Matt Thomas — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:00:51 +0000

Email spam is one of the most annoying phenomena of the modern world. They waste everyone’s time, clog up email accounts needlessly and part the vulnerable and stupid from their money with alarming efficiency. Today, another reason to hate spam and spamming has emerged, as if we needed one, the fact that it’s killing the environment.

According to a report from antivirus software provider McAfee, in cooperation with consultancy ICF International, the huge amounts of useless sales and scam emails sent every year are having a pronounced impact on the environment. According to McAfee, the sending of one spam email translates to 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the wasted energy. This isn’t that much, though the huge volumes of emails we’re talking about mean that the effect starts to become significant very quickly.

The report estimates that the approximately 62 trillion spam emails sent every year use up 33 billion kilowatt hours of power.

Obviously those figures are huge and very troubling. However, McAfee have not released the figures for the harm to the environment caused by the legitimate email and computer use, probably because their agenda is to pour shame on spam mailers. Unfortunately, without those it’s difficult to put the figures in context.

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Court finds in favour of Verizon in Cybersquatting case

Jay Smith — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:00:32 +0000

Last week a court of law decided that San Francisco firm, Online NIC had deliberately registered domains in order to lure Verizon customers to their sites, a technique known as cyber squatting. Verizon were awarded $33.15 million dollars, the largest amount ever awarded in a case of this type.

Online NIC registered 663 domain names which were either exactly the same as, or very similar to Verizon trademarks, these included verizononline.com, myverizonwireless.com and even down to unlikely stuff like 123verizonphones.com. Unsurprisingly, the court decided that these were not legitimately purchased domains and, in fact, were purchased in bad faith with the express desire of misleading the public.

The judgement worked out to $50’000 dollars per domain name. It is hoped that it will deter people from cybersquatting in the future. That is certainly the view of Verizon vice president, Sarah Deutsch who said about the judgement, “This case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers.”

However, Verizon’s chances of actually getting the money may be limited, especially considering the fact that no representatives from Online NIC were present in court to defend themselves, not even a lawyer.

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Concerns over the SearchWiki Comment Function

Matt Thomas — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:00:06 +0000

We’ve been talking a lot about SearchWiki this week. However, one important side of it that we haven’t discussed yet is the comments function, which presents some awkward challenges for site owners. Now that any user can comment on any site on Google you’re going to have to regularly check you aren’t being flamed by competitors, angry customers or general malcontents. There’s also the ever present spectre of comment spam to worry about.

Luckily, these comments aren’t visible to the general public, only those logged into SearchWiki who choose to click the ‘see all notes…’ tab. However, as SearchWiki becomes more ubiquitous and people get used to looking at comments on it this may become a problem. Also, it’s simply not that nice to see, unfair, abusive or plainly untrue comments about your site from some random ‘Internet tough guy’.

Of course people can leave good comments, though anyone who knows a bit about the internet will know that comments boards tend to bring out the worst in people, just have a look at the YouTube board.

If you find yourself slandered on the comments area of your own site listing, you can flag the comment as inappropriate though by then the damage may have already been done.

I’ve got to say i think this is a bit unfair of Google. When you put a comments board on your own site, that’s your choice and you accept the consequences. What SearchWiki is doing is foisting the burden of hearing negative comments about their company, organisation etc., onto site owners.

There are likely to be many who arent to happy about that. I think Google may experience a bit of a backlash from this one.

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