Slashdot Mirror
Faux-CNN Spam Blitz Delivers Malicious Flash
CWmike writes "More than a thousand hacked Web sites are serving up fake Flash Player software to users duped into clicking on links in mail that's part of a massive spam attack masquerading as CNN.com news notifications, security researchers said today. The bogus messages, which claim to be from the CNN.com news Web site, include links to what are supposedly the day's Top 10 news stories and Top 10 news video clips from the cable network. Clicking on any of those links, however, brings up a dialog that says an incorrect version of Flash Player has been detected and that tells users they needed to update to a fake newer edition, which delivers a Trojan horse — identified by multiple names, including Cbeplay.a — that 'phones home' to a malicious server to grab and install additional malware."
I was wondering why I being spammed with such a seemingly innocuous message, I thought perhaps it was just a filter poisoning attempt.
it took me quite a while to figure out why this would be effective spam.
Then I had a look a the HTML view. Quite insidious.
It provides what looks like a linkified http://www.cnn.com/xxxxxxx that actually referrs to a different url.
"Trojan found that installs malware on Windows computers."
Wake me up when the rest of us need to worry. Oh, and tag this microsoft windows please.
you had me at #!
I thought I was on crack! I thought my mailserver got hacked. I have been receiving 20+ of these messages for the past 3 days...
Update exchange's filter rules, with no affect.
Lets get this filtered!
It is windows only.
A relief, kinda..
... it takes a lot to get the kosher flashplayer to work, let alone a hooky one.
More like "Faux-CNN Spam Wolf Blitzer Delivers Malicious Flash"!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Of course, if you are smart enough not to run Microsoft Windows, this doesn't affect you...
Here's a nickel, kid. Go get yourself a *real* operating system...
You insensitive...er, umm...yeah, I'm alright.
And a big "Ha-ha!" to windoze users.
-- Boycott Shell
Botnets for sale!
There is another similar one pushing 'IE 7 is now available for download' from 'Microsoft'.
ya.. right...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But not invincible..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But is Cbeplay easy to develop for?
Here's an excerpt from a message posted by a friend on EVERYONE's wall: (X's are mine, just to add some security) "HEY GUYS GET YOUR GAMING ON! ENTER AND WIN A PS3 Or Free PLASMA ITS EASY AND FREE SIGN UP AT THE URL BELOW http://xxxxx.imageshack.us/XXXXX/gameonit4.swf "
Too bad nobody is ever going to find the folks responsible for this. Pretty much any email that even has the letters "cnn" in it will go in the trash now. Do you think any email of a forwarded story from the CNN site would possibly get through today? Next week? It wouldn't surprise me if CNN.com ad rates took a nosedive because of this as well. Who wants to go to "the spammer" web site?
This is the sort of extremely bad PR that CNN would be well within their rights to sue the pants off of whoever started this nonsense. Unfortunately, it probably originated somewhere that doesn't care about US companies, US laws or what people think about spam. Also, how exactly would you prove where it came from?
Hope someone is getting paid real good for this. I don't think this can put CNN out of business, but it is certainly going to hurt real bad.
I've received nine of these (in just a few hours) on my usual (university) email address. But google mail keeps telling me about them, instead of marking them as spam or phishing and just moving them out of the way. Worse yet it leaves them on my (university) mail server which has an absurdly low quota - so I'll have to remove them manually. This means I need to deal with this crap twice - once when google mail tells me it won't give it to me and once when I need to login to the server and manually delete them. It would be so much nicer if google mail would flag these as spam or phishing, take them off the server and just make them invisible.
Of course (and yes, I'm contradicting myself) I'd also like (since I'm interested in viruses and the like) to be able to set a flag where I could say, "Let me download this. Yes, I do know what I'm doing" and give it to me in some nice packed format.
This attack shows a complete disregard for fellow humans by the 100s of millions. The only fair punishment is the death penalty. There may even be some deterrent effect from that, but even without it should still be DEATH!
Companies doing business on the web have curtailed the functionality of email correspondence, and often tell consumers the only safe method is to visit their site and log in. Acquiring software isn't much different, get it from the source. Personally, I find the incessant requirement of plug-ins to be breaking the web when no alternative (text) is offered. /Get off my lawn!
Damn their oily hides!
Sig this!
I can see the headline now: "We're not spamming you (really)"
A trojan-horse application is being delivered by email, masquerading as content from a major corporation.
This is news? We're supposed to be surprised?
Cross-posted from my journal.
And now we have the latest malware wave, where 1000+ legitimate sites have been hacked to serve a fake Flash player. This is going to seriously hurt CNN's reputation (and ad revenue), as a lot of folks are going to set their mail servers to delete stuff that even mentions CNN. Worse yet, it's going to put a serious hurting on the 1000+ hacked sites: CNN has enough goodwill and trust built up that it will survive the onslaught, but the "other victims" may end up blacklisted by a lot of folks.
Most malware authors have learned not to crap in their own bed: the days of a virus that wiped your files are fading; now we have malware that more-or-less uses your files alone, but uses your connection to send spam or do DoS attacks. If they make the attack less blatant, it's less likely to be discovered and cleaned up.
While the malware authors may be trying to stay quiet on the PC, they sure don't mind hurting companies ... and that hurts the internet as a whole. As much as some in the geek community may dislike it, the Internet is payed for by commerce--internet sales, services, and subscriptions indirectly pay for the infrastructure we all use. If these small companies are hurt by spammers and malware authors, then the small companies may be less willing to maintain an internet presence--which means there will be less people who pay the ISPs to maintain and improve the infrastructure.
There are a lot of contingent statements in the above paragraph, and maybe I'm getting more worried than I should be, but I have to wonder: how long will it be until spammers, scammers, and other low-grade shits ruin the Internet for everyone?
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
In its DEFAULT setup, especially regarding security? Maybe... but, NOT if you do this:
HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 & VISTA, + make it "fun to do", via CIS Tool Guidance:
http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=69e3a8383c24ab823ef36b246b66ce88&showtopic=2662
Then again, IF you look there? Linux doesn't do ANY BETTER "outta-the-box/oem-stock" (yes, even SeLinux bearing distros) either, as both OS' stock only score into the mid-40's of 100 possible ranges, initially (until you 'security-harden' them).
Both reach 90's++ ranges, IF you take the time to do the work required, per CIS Tool guidance and the other points that guide notes to look out for, & shore up.
My ISP-provided spam filter caught this one and tossed it into the e-carp can and so did Gmail's spam filter. In the ISP-provided spam e-box, I've been noticing quite a bit of faux news email headers, including thousands dead in a stampede at a soccer game?? Dumbass spammers.
This spam helped me find a bug in my procmail recipe - this was sent to my Sourceforge email address (never had spam there before), and was forwarded on to Google which bounced it as an illegal attachment. Kudos to Google for being on the ball.
The 1,200 recursive bounce messages that ensued were no-one's fault but my own. :)
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
Attacks like this don't work outside of Winblows. The problem is that users have been conditioned to needing a never ending series of non free "upgrades" from untrusted sites to do what they want. I can download Gnash all day from Ubuntu and never find a trojan. Not even Apple users have the same problem. Users of other OS have been conditioned to get their software from a place they can trust. Free software users have learned not to trust non free software like Flash itself.
M$, because life is too short to type icrosoft frequently.
Solution to unintelligent users was to block all downloads of "get_flash_update.exe" on our proxy server.
Removal process was fairly trivial; All processes/files were > 10 chars randomized like a362b462da6.exe/scr. Processes were easily killable and removable without having to do anything fancy like boot off a Linux CD.
The only things we found that it installed was XP AntiVirus 2008 under C:\program files\[random > 10 digit name]. Again, fairly easy to remove.
Another day, another spam mail getting through our crappy anti-spam service.
No way am I clicking a link on an article with a headline of "Malicious Flash". goatse is not an experience i wish to repeat.
Not if you are using SELinux that is properly configured, in which case the access controls are set at the level of the applications security context.
Not saying that it's perfect, but it would help and I'm sure that is where most OS's are going to head in the future.
I haven't received a single one. This is why I run my own mail server. I don't trust other people to do a good job.
Without looking at the logs, my guess is the Zen list from Spamhaus.org is doing the good work here.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I might just be on a hobbyhorse here, but it seems like a proper HTML5 standard with a -video- tag and a recommended codec would put a stop to all this "Download the latest executable thingamajig to view the media on this site"
(if you hadn't heard, this was tried, and any DRM-incompatible codec was called a "non-starter" by the "content industry")
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
And here's the original Dilbert comic for that line
http://ozguru.mu.nu/Photos/2005-11-11--Dilbert_Unix.jpg
Like clicking on a .deb package, [entering password,] and letting gdebi install it?
Not even Apple users have the same problem. Users of other OS have been conditioned to get their software from a place they can trust. Free software users have learned not to trust non free software like Flash itself.
So where do Apple users get their Flash updates from then?
Windows gets autorooted in less than 4 minutes. Why do you persist in calling it safe? Because you are a liar.
Political torture and murder is not funny http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=581079&cid=23757591
Now I understand. dedazo appears to be a well-know Micro$oft shill.
It's unfair. I clicked the link in the email, and it told me to update flash, but the flash updater I downloaded from their site doesn't work on my computer.
:(
How am I supposed to see the CNN videos if they don't make a linux version? Linux sux, I'm going back to windows.
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
This is a REALLY aggressive spam campaign. I never received a message with the subject of "CNN.com Daily Top 10" until 2 days ago at 1:49 PM. Since then, I have received 1,799 of these messages and counting. Of course, I get spammed to death already -- my email address (deven@ties.org) has been public for many years, and I don't even hide it here on Slashdot, even though it really is my primary email address. Spam has grown to the point where I am receiving over 10,000 messages every single day. (Yes, that's about a million messages in 3 months.)
On a separate note, I received an email yesterday with the title "Action required to avoid account access interruption" -- and it was actually a legitimate email! I receive such emails daily from phishing attempts, but this one was actually sent to me by TD Ameritrade.
It's a sad state of affairs when it's the legitimate email that comes as a surprise.
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
Security is not a binary thing, and no one in their right mind has never claimed it is - beyond misinterpretation of unqualified comments.
50,000:1 in my books means that the 1 is damn nigh invincible. Anything else is academic.
PS: I just got pointed out today how stupid the UAC in Vista is. "A program is attempting to access your computer - cancel/allow?" Um, what kind of program exists that DOESN'T "access my computer"? This question was posed by a complete computer novice, so I'm not even speaking on a technical level here. By any definition of "access", technical or n00b, that's what programs do - access the computer. Who would ever say no, unless they maybe accidentally clicked on the wrong program entirely. If I clicked on something, of course I want it to access my computer.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Why don't all mail readers which display html simply do what Slashdot does - show the real site linked to in brackets next to whatever text is in the link, like "cnn.com [http://somewhere.de]" - perhaps with highlighting when both look like urls, but they don't match? That would kill so many phishing attempts.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
A while ago I had a regular email that would for whatever reason lock up Outlook when trying to download its HTML content.
So I set Outlook to always show plain text versions of all emails. This has provided two benefits:
1) Much faster message display
2) Malicious emails are easier to spot
In this case it was a while bunch of links where the text was http://x.cnn.com/ but the actual href was http://seomthing.de.
In Outlook 2007: Tools - Trust Center - E-Mail Security - Read all standard mail in plain text.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Just to be clear, users are downloading malicious software that is posing as the Flash Player. "Malicious Flash", to me, means Flash content (a SWF) that uses a vulnerability in the Flash Player to compromise a user's system. While Flash hasn't had a spotless security record, I don't know of any instances where a vulnerability in the Flash Player has been exploited on a scale such as this. In the past few years, Adobe has really strived to make Flash Player much more secure. Were this to be an actual case of "malicious Flash", I think it would be a big PR problem for Adobe and make end users extra wary of Flash for some time to come.
The wording in the title seems to me like calling someone social engineering some passwords a "WIndows security vulnerability" - misleading and inaccurate, at best.
Saw it.
Figured it out in 12 seconds.
Deleted it.
Blacklisted it.
As if CNN got me subscribed somehow, and is using some podunk server in East Gish.
pity da fools that got sucked in.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So where do Apple users get their Flash updates from then?
I think they're bundled with Safari, thus the updates would come from the Mac OS X "Software Update" tool.
Call me when they ported it to mac so we can have the same user experience ...
Any project maintainers?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I use OS X, and although Flash does ship with the system, I have downloaded newer versions direct from Adobe. I've also downloaded third party codecs such as Windows Media/Flip4Mac from Microsoft, and the open source Perian. Granted, I do trust all of those as much as one can trust Adobe and Microsoft, but third party plugins are not unheard of on the Mac, just rarer.
Oh, and don't forget all of the people who have jailbroken their Apple iPhones with software obtained from the shadiest places possible (such as RapidShare)! People have no problems installing random binaries on their systems.
The problem is that 'places people can trust' often don't release the software and media that people want to run or view.
Microsoft is not going to release today's latest screener movies via BitTorrent, and Debian is not going to add "Asian Teen Whores IV" to its download repositories.
Your solution is great for OS upgrades, and some applications and their updates, but it certainly doesn't work everywhere.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
14th account?
I read the title and I got and image of Bill O'Reilly and Anderson Cooper mooning everybody. Now I need to go scrub my brain with lye soap.
Is that CNN's "Crack Team of Reporters" can't discover the responsible parties.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
That is true, although now that I think about it, most of the third-party Mac OS X applications I use (including Perian but not Flip4Mac) are very good about checking for updates automatically, thus there's at least a tiny shred of hope that the user of such an application wouldn't be suckered in by this "plug-in is out of date; download this new one" trick.
That being said, I am fully aware that Apple users are just as vulnerable to social engineering as their PC counterparts.
And as long as we're on the subject, thus far I haven't had any problems accessing any website on my Mac due to having a possibly dated version of Flash (your own mileage may vary, of course). I have occasionally run into problems due to Adobe's failure to port other plug-ins to the Intel Mac (such as Shockwave), but that seems more like a case of either incompetence or laziness on Adobe's part--not much any of us can do about that unless there's an open-source alternative that runs natively on Intel (and the few incidents I had weren't serious enough that I was compelled to go looking).
"Winblows"?
We need to change the odds of the spammers' game to make them the losers. My suggestion to make Gmail a very hostile environment for spammers.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
RPM is much better!
... if malicious software was starting up when you log in - something having modified your .profile, .bashrc , whatever. Also it would be dead easy to remove. Not so with windows which generally takes an age to log in anyway so you probably wouldn't even notice a few extra seconds, and the places where a user space trojan initiator script can hide are so varied.
Yes under unix a user space process could fork off a daemon which remains running after you log out but once discovered running its easily killed and the binary easily found.
Duh, read the emails.
I got mine updated from cnn.com.1234567.compromised-servers.net/trojan.app
Unfortunately, it probably originated somewhere that doesn't care about US companies, US laws....
Well, that covers most of the world then.
....or what people think about spam.
True, but it is probably an accurate statement to say that spammers don't care what people think about spam.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Thereby installing it into the local repository, where you can still find it and fully remove it?
freeflux-powered open-source blog
I got 7 of these in my Google Spam folder on August 5th. None of them look remotely like spam. You can VERY EASILY see that the links don't point to cnn.com by OnMouseOvering the links when reading them in Google's client.
That being said, I am not sure if legit CNN.com e-mails are going to start getting flagged (not that I think many people would let CNN.com deliver them "news" in the first place) but CNN.com itself is a disaster-pot of obnoxious Flash ads with Dancing Mortgage rates and Spinning Whirlwinds.
If they really want goodwill, they should make it possible for their site to load reliably with No-Script turned on. As it stands, I only use them for a very limited amount of content that they provide (sports stories and the politic stories not picked up on Slashdot).
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
I followed one of these a few days ago inside VirtualPC to see if AVG would spot it (it did).
It put Firefox inside an endless loop of popups telling me to download a new flash player (I don't have noscript on that copy) so it's pretty mean in that respect - you can't press cancel to make it go away you have to kill the browser with the task manager.
No sig today...
Just because you see no symptoms doesn't mean your box hasn't been pwned... I've seen plenty of boxen that have been compromised and sending out data over the network yet the console seems fine.
I do. If I had seen one of these I would have avoided it because it has "CNN" somewhere in it.
Doubtless, but he only claimed it was hard to install non-repos software ... which I find so absurd that I must have misunderstood.
There's 0install and autopackage too. Though I forget the details I think 0install counts as repos but not autopackage.
The problem is that 'places people can trust' often don't release the software and media that people want to run or view.Microsoft is not going to release today's latest screener movies via BitTorrent, and Debian is not going to add "Asian Teen Whores IV" to its download repositories.Your solution is great for OS upgrades, and some applications and their updates, but it certainly doesn't work everywhere.
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs