Websites blacklisted by iFrame attacks

**Glaswegian** · 04-11-2008, 06:29 AM

Up to 80 percent of websites flagged as malicious by anti-virus and search engine indexes are legitimate businesses, according to security experts.

Experts said while the security industry is on top of conventional spam and phishing attacks, more effort needs to be put into preventing and eliminating so-called drive-by-downloads.

The attacks allow hackers to redirect massive amounts of traffic by inserting malicious IFRAMES into legitimate websites. The hacks are usually invisible to Web site visitors and do not often draw attention from security personnel because they only require a single line of code to be manipulated.

Sophos CTO Paul Ducklin said affected organisations risk losing business because they are flagged as malicious by search engines such as Google, and anti-phishing software.

"You could imagine the business lost if one of only three or four local sign writers were tagged in a search as malicious," Ducklin said.

"It can be very expensive to fix iframe attacks because they can originate externally or internally, and they have a very small footprint."

http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...S&NewsID=11951

04-11-2008, 06:29 AM	#1 (permalink)
Glaswegian Moderator/ Rangemaster TSF Academy; Analyst, Security Team; Oor Wullie; TSF Surgeon and Resident Comic Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Glasgow Posts: 25,458 OS: Win XP Pro SP3 / Win 7 Pro My System Blog Entries: 10	Websites blacklisted by iFrame attacks Up to 80 percent of websites flagged as malicious by anti-virus and search engine indexes are legitimate businesses, according to security experts. Experts said while the security industry is on top of conventional spam and phishing attacks, more effort needs to be put into preventing and eliminating so-called drive-by-downloads. The attacks allow hackers to redirect massive amounts of traffic by inserting malicious IFRAMES into legitimate websites. The hacks are usually invisible to Web site visitors and do not often draw attention from security personnel because they only require a single line of code to be manipulated. Sophos CTO Paul Ducklin said affected organisations risk losing business because they are flagged as malicious by search engines such as Google, and anti-phishing software. "You could imagine the business lost if one of only three or four local sign writers were tagged in a search as malicious," Ducklin said. "It can be very expensive to fix iframe attacks because they can originate externally or internally, and they have a very small footprint." http://www.techworld.com/security/ne...S&NewsID=11951 __________________ Iain - Defender of the Haggis and all things Scottish. I don't help by PM - post in the Forums. PC Safety & Security::PC running a bit slow?::Donate::Photographers Corner