The relative peace of the holiday season was shattered yesterday when news spread that Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, had been assassinated at an election rally. But some people looking to read the news about this shocking strike-down of an attractive, educated world leader got a nasty surprise.
According to online security firm Websense, malicious Web sites attempting to capitalize on the breaking news of the assassination have cropped up. Visitors to these sites get a lot more than the latest news -- they get infected with viruses.
TrendLabs found that at least one of these sites runs an embedded malicious JavaScript redirect, which downloads a trojan which, in turn, downloads even more malicious files.
Although this sort of thing has apparently happened before -- malevalent pranksters take advantage of breaking news to set up virus-laden sites -- one possible difference this go-around is that one of the infected sites was the second result in a Google search using the simple keyword "Benazir." Websense notes that as a consequence, this particular site will get a lot of traffic...and do a lot of damage.
Google offered no warning about this site, which should make all of us pause when conducting searches. For some reason, I had assumed that high ranks in Google searches correlate with legit web sites, or at least correlate with web sites not set up by malicious hackers.
It's sad to see misguided people trying to have some fun with a tragic situation. But, you've got to wonder how this site vaulted so high in the rankings, appearing even before the website of Bhutto's own political party, the Pakistan Peoples Party.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:55 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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