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Hackers Target Tsunami Search Results
xsee writes "Only hours after the earthquake and resulting tsunami from Chile, hackers began manipulating search results to direct people seeking information on the event to infected webpages. Exercise caution as to where you get information on this tragedy. Chester Wisniewski describes what happened after he saw a suspicious site listed second on a Google search: 'It appears to be a normal website with information and videos about different Asian tsunamis over the past few years. It is difficult to tell whether this particular page was SEO-optimized, or was an innocent victim of a malicious script. SophosLabs got back to me that this page contains some obfuscated malicious JavaScript that we detect as MAL/ObfJS-R. This script was appended after the normal code on the page.'"
Not only do I think this is a little sick on the part of the blackhats, but it does pose some other concerns.
Firstly, are the media going to pick up on this and if they do, will they spin it as an opportunity to bad-mouth the Web and its communities, as well as encourage talk of "tougher rules" and the like.
Since this is a JS vulnerability, I'd certainly like to see more discussion and thought around how seriously we take JS integration on the web and how we approach it as a core target for evil-doers to exploit. Could more be done?
Lastly, how are the web search engines going to react? Could more things like this call for censorship of Google, Yahoo etc; or at least more claims for 'responsibility of the search engines'?
ilovegeorgebush
When criminal greed crosses the line to utter malice, it's a sign that someone needs to encounter some righteous justice. Some people just deserve a beating.
This happens every time a big news story breaks, especially for natural disasters. We saw it with Haiti as well - it's hardly news.
I saw clients hit with this behavior after the Michael Jackson hit the news and with each major story since. Each time a tragedy hits I tell my girlfriend virus/spyware cleaning calls are about to pick up a bit for me. Sad but entirely predictable now.
You know the thing about UDP jokes? I don't care if you get it or not.
They all use XSS for page redirection... I just go through and make my list of pages vulnerable to XSS for my own use when I want to toy with someone on a forum :D
...Satan is readying a room for these guys.
This ain't rocket surgery.
How can a browser, via javascript on top of that, infect a computer with a virus/trojan/whatever? And can Javascript even write files to your drive?
How do we protect ourselves from these malicious script websites?
(Note: I'm using the Opera X 10.10 browser.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This is /., right? Can we please STOP calling these FUCKTARDS hackers!!!
After Joannie Rochettes short program, I googled it because I missed it. Literally the first 2 pages or so of results were 90% dummy sites with malicious payloads.
This isn't new at all. EVERY time a popular search pops up, these douchebags try to game the results to get their pages on the first page.
This is happening too with the trainer killed by the whale, I googled and found 2 sites trying to make download a file that virustotal says 4/41 is a worm.
If the knowledge is still be using to do bad things, the individual one is a Cracker, not a Hacker.
Nuke it from orbit, that's the only way to be sure.
Watch Hawaii Tsunami Video: The one of the effects of Chile Earthquake 2010 The aftermath of Chile earthquake is worsening. Today morning a Japanese island was hit. The one of the effects of the strong earthquake that recently hit Chile is the tsunami that has hit Hawaii. Watch Here
gosh darn meanies. to heck with those cunts. muddy funsters that they are!
I operate allchile.net, a forum for expats in Chile that has been operating for a little over 4 years. I am located in Temuco, Chile (about 100 miles south of the worst devastation) and just got my internet connection back a few hours to see all the spammers on google trying to force their way in to the position. Now me and all the other established sites in Chile, with real history and connections to know what is going on in Chile are fighting the Google spammers to try and get people in touch with their missing relatives and get news out to the World about the distaster.
If you have a web site, and want to help us, link to the real sites about Chile. Even Facebook, twitter, and CNN are in a way in our way. They will be all chatting up the topic for a week or two more, then they will be gone. Our sites will still have to fight back up to the top of Google while trying to assist with the reconstruction.
My sites and my friends sites (all run by people on the ground in the disaster by the way):
http://www.allchile.net/
http://www.allsouthernchile.com/
http://www.santiagoradio.cl/
http://www.thepulse.cl/
http://www.spencerglobal.com/
Living in Chile
It is difficult to tell whether this particular page was SEO-optimized...
Search engine optimization-optimized?
What if the people who did this mysteriously disappears the next time there is a tsunami, even if they are far inland? Would anyone actually bother looking for them?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Incidents like this are a good reason for search engine operators like Google to add malware detection to their systems, refuse to index such pages, and actively blacklist the hosts (by dropping them entirely from the index or from the search results) until the problem is fixed.
It is probably also a good idea to penalize pages with clearly dodgy (if not malicious) javascript in terms of page rank as well.