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Hackers Exploit Bhutto Tragedy
Techtree News Staff, Dec 31, 2007 1655 hrs ISTAccording to McAfee, within hours of the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto, so-called videos of the act were being publicized on the Web.
It's becoming customary for malware authors to exploit a fresh tragedy, no matter its magnitude. The last instance being the Virginia Tech massacre.
Following the tragic assassination of former Pakistani Premier, Benazir Bhutto, security firms are reporting a host of incidents where hackers are luring unsuspecting users into downloading malware under the guise of codecs for so-called videos of the assassination.
According to McAfee, within hours of the killing, supposed videos were being publicized on the Web. Those who sought to view the promised Web clips were prompted into downloading high-definition codec that turned out to be no such thing; rather malware looking to infect computers and steal sensitive data.
Searching for news on the assassination led users to a sprint of Web sites ferrying the fake codec.
McAfee located ten such Web sites hosted on the Google blog service and Blogger.com, while WebSense located one such site simply by typing 'benazir' on Google.
Apart from the fake codec, the other modus operandi of malware authors seemed to be to attract users to Web sites that attempted drive-by installations when unsuspecting users visited search engine results for say, 'benazir bhutto'.
More:
Virginia Tech and the Internet!
Following the tragic assassination of former Pakistani Premier, Benazir Bhutto, security firms are reporting a host of incidents where hackers are luring unsuspecting users into downloading malware under the guise of codecs for so-called videos of the assassination.
According to McAfee, within hours of the killing, supposed videos were being publicized on the Web. Those who sought to view the promised Web clips were prompted into downloading high-definition codec that turned out to be no such thing; rather malware looking to infect computers and steal sensitive data.
Searching for news on the assassination led users to a sprint of Web sites ferrying the fake codec.
McAfee located ten such Web sites hosted on the Google blog service and Blogger.com, while WebSense located one such site simply by typing 'benazir' on Google.
Apart from the fake codec, the other modus operandi of malware authors seemed to be to attract users to Web sites that attempted drive-by installations when unsuspecting users visited search engine results for say, 'benazir bhutto'.
More:
Virginia Tech and the Internet!
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