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back to article Blackhole crimeware kit drives web threat spike

Fake anti-virus scams are on the wane but drive-by-download threats have rocketed over the past year thanks to the hugely popular Blackhole crimeware kit, while Conficker remains prolific some three years after its release, according to Sophos. The UK-based security vendor said in its Security Threat Report 2012 (PDF) released …

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  1. LarsG

    GREEK

    Mythology, like the Hydra, it has many heads, cut off one and two grow in its place.

    There is usually a lull before the storm, they're just waiting for the heads to grow back.

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  2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    conficker still causing trouble after 3 years.

    So the House of Commons is still infected.

    Nuke them from orbit?

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  3. despairing citizen
    Big Brother

    Government (in)Action Planned Against Identified UK Cybercrime

    One part time officer to be allocated to combat UK computer crime.

    Will be rigourously vetted to ensure apropriate knowledge, as follows;

    1. Must NOT have read the Computer Misuse Act 1990

    2. Must have NO knowledge of DPA98

    3. Must only intermittenly remember RIPA (i.e. when it can be used to spy on ex-wife, or daughter's new boy friend)

    4. Must be able to repeat "I have no recollection of that conversation", when asked by a judge what his last comment to a Murdoch employee or contractor was

    Primary job activity to attend security conferences and demostrate the appropriate knowledge listed above, thus ensuring a reduction in reported computer crime, because everybody will realise there is no point to reporting it.

    Cybercrime...What Problem?

    Warning. may contain excessive amounts of sarcasm

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  4. Franklin

    “The spam emails the cyber criminals sent with malicious attachments were working but users are now getting more sophisticated and suspicious so they’re forced to move to other techniques. It’s harder for the criminals because once the infection is found the website can be blocked.”

    Can be, but seldom is.

    And the sites I've seen carrying this kind of drive-by download threat are pretty widely scattered. An example I found last night involved a site that had been hacked to summon up a hostile JavaScript from three additional hacked sites. The JavaScript--loaded three times from three sources to help improve resiliency--redirected users to the first site on to yet another site, which in turn ran very heavily obfuscated JavaScript that tried a whole cocktail of browser and plugin exploits to download the payload.

    So the actual payload site is pretty far removed from the original point of infection, and usually hosted on a provider who's known to turn a blind eye to malware as long as the checks still clear.

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  5. Tom 13

    User education is useless when the infection comes

    from a drive-by via an ad on an otherwise "safe" site. Yeah, had another user with one of those today. Nothing unusual about the sites he was on, and as usual, the AV didn't catch it. Now I'm waiting on the security drones to okay the system rebuild.

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  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    So *not* user education, site *operator* education needed.

    Otherwise how would that malware get hosted by a site in the *first* place?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Malware Drivebys

      Looking at the drive by attacks the best thing to do is patch your Windows and 3rd Party Apps and as already stated the web site owners or developers need to be more aware of this stuff. In my experience about half leave the sites compromised and dishing Malware probably until they get blacklisted.

      Legitimate sites I've seen compromised are a Cattery, a music review site, a folk musican's site, a Spanish golf club hire site, a Thai Spa in London, a Paris to London cycling site and a Surrey based Surveyors but also a few more. Many of the sites are due to Wordpress vulnerabilities on all but one which I think was FTP account related.

      So the user education is Windows Update, Secunia PSI or File Hippo Updater for 3rd party apps and if tech savvy enough use Firefox with NoScript (along with Ad blocker at the). NoScript stops driveby attacks due to the current infection methods

      Compromised Site -----> Redirection Site ----> Exploit Server

      So even if the compromised site is allowed to run scripts the other sites will not and the infection attempt will not successfully complete.

      Website designers unaware of vulnerabilities or poor FTP passwords are far more difficult to try and educate and it is left up to the user to take their own precautions.

      I usually remove PDF Reader and use Sumatra PDF instead and uninstall Java.

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