Mainstream Websites Now Sometimes Corrupted by Viruses
Everyone knows that they should be careful on the Internet. But websites that you would ordinarily figure to be safe are becoming stomping grounds for e-thieves. Infected web pages first appeared in late 2005. Now even Google advertising links can be suspect. Top tier websites to mom and pop bakery sites are all now potential risk factors.
Crooks are corrupting Web pages by the tens of thousands. They exploit holes in the Internet Explorer browser to implant tiny programs that connect the PC of anyone who clicks on the tainted link or page to a mother server, which is usually located in Russia or China.
Aside from collecting data that unsuspected users type into online forms (these include information like banking log-ins and online transactions) it also converts a user’s PC into a “bot”, or a computer that is unwittingly used to transmit spam messages. In a recent sweep, a security firm named Cyveillance identified 50,000 corrupted pages. Others estimate that the number might be 10 times that figure.
On the Friday before the 2007 Super Bowl, anyone who visited the Dolphin Stadium website got connected to a server in China. It was poised to gather access codes for the popular PC game World of Warcraft. The thief sought to loot better weapons and spells from football fans that happen to be WOW gamers. Other corrupters use e-mail as a lure. Millions of spam e-mails with a bogus alert about Australian Prime Minister John Howard suffering a heart attack circulated in February.
Most often, attacks use fresh security holes in Internet Explorer, the dominant browser. China and the USA are held to have the most virus tainted websites.
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