Website of Indian mission in Spain hijacked by cybercrooks, injected malware may multiply
Website of Indian mission in Spain hijacked by cybercrooks, injected malware may multiply
The website of the Embajada de la India en Espau00f1a or the Indian Embassy in Spain has been hijacked by cyber crooks in what can be a global conspiracy to infect diplomatic missions across the world, cyber security experts said.
The audacious attack has exposed thousands of users, who visit the embassy's website, to infection.
The embassy was serving malware through an injected malicious iFrame that leads to a file detected as BKDR_TDSS.CG, said Trend Micro, an international cyber security provider.
Initial investigations revealed that apart from the malicious iFrame, a large number of codes were also inserted into the website.
As a result, numerous tags were put on the site with headers containing links to various websites. These headers were hidden from unsuspecting visitors camouflaged under very small font size.
Experts at TrendLabs also indicated that the Indian embassy website is not the only one injected with the codes. They pointed out that there was an imminent possibility of a massive and global code attack on diplomatic missions.
The set of injected codes was also reported to change from time to time.
Further probe into the source suggested that this is possibly an advertisement scam or a massive malware attack in its early stage. This would also explain why parts of this threat do not appear to be fully functional.
Experts warned, though, that since the website is already compromised, it's just a matter of modifying the tags to turn the seemingly "non-malicious" injection of code into a full-blown malware attack.
Amit Nath, Country Manager, Trend Micro India & SAARC, told MiD DAY: "In 2007, similar attacks were reported on Italian websites. Online criminals had launched a widespread Web attack that had turned tens of thousands of legitimate web sites into weapons and almost all the websites that sourced the malware were from Italy."
"In such a case, users should ensure that their softwares are fully updated and patched, as hackers are relying on users running exploitable programmes to gain entry into their systems," he said.
Favourite targetsThe US Consulate in St Petersburg, the French Embassy in Lybia, the Syrian Embassy in London, the Dutch Embassy in Moscow or the Embassy of Brazil in India have been attacked by cyber criminals at various times.
