Experts are warning users to avoid a French embassy website after a page was
found to be exposing users to malware.
The attack took place on the Libyan version of the embassy site. The
malicious code is hidden within the page and cannot be seen upon entering the
site.
Researchers from
McAfee said
that the malicious code is embedded in the page as an iframe tag. The tag allows
the page to launch another page as an invisible one pixel by one pixel box.
The iframe box connects to a site in Hong Kong, which uses embedded iframes
of its own to redirect to another site in the Ukraine. That site then attempts
to run a browser exploit and install malware on the user's computer.
"Once again, we can see how people involved in such attacks use dedicated
malicious websites in various countries to make it difficult to defeat them,"
researcher Francois Paget wrote on
a
company blog.
"It is especially difficult when an ISP accepts to host websites without
verifying the lesser data the criminals enters when they register."
McAfee thinks that the attacks might be an effort to exploit public interest
of Libyan dictator Moamer Khadafi's upcoming visit to France. The researchers
compared the attacks to last summer's
'Italian
Job' attacks in which travel and recreation sites were used to push malware
on unsuspecting users.
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