After hearing the news of famous actor Patrick Swayze's death, many turned to the Internet to find details pertaining to the circumstances surrounding this tragic event. While most turned to reputable media websites, such as television news channels and print newspapers, some simply went to search engines and typed in several keywords. A few unknowingly stumbled upon a fake news report which contains a pop up stating that the individual's computer needs to have an anti-virus scan performed immediately. Unfortunately, the creators of this site are not benevolent programmers concerned with the well being of the computes of the site's visitors. The program is malware and can have a detrimental effect on the computer's performance. The biggest catch to this program is that one need not even click on the pop up to download the malware. It has been programmed in such a way that only moving the cursor over the box initiates the download.
The most obvious reason hackers would do this is because after the actor's death, it would only seem logical that people would get on their computers to try and find out what happened. Even as soon as people figure out this report is a fake, the pop up has already been activated. The most rational response to a pop up is to exit out, which in the process could accidentally trigger the download. In order to avoid being infected by this malware, one should avoid using rouge news outlets for information and stick to trusted news outlets. If one does become infected, they should immediately perform a legitimate virus scan on their system.
Greene, Tim. "Internet Scammers Leap on Patrick Swayze's Death." PC World. 16 Sept. 2009. Web. 20 Sept. 2009.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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The amount of intelligence these hackers possess is incredible, yet very disturbing. After such a tragic event, hackers immediately designed a site with a new article containing malware that harms computers. Even though I hear of hackers using these harmful programs a lot, this is the first one of this type that I have heard of. Usually, the user must click to download a program in order for the malware to infect the computer; however, the malware downloads regardless of whether the user clicks the 'Download' button or not. This is very troubling because pop-ups appear on my computer all the time. I do not click on them; however, this new program would make it so that each time an individual goes to an untrustworthy site, he/she can get a virus without clicking. Perhaps these have been used all along, but this is the first time I have heard of something like this. Is this a new type of hacking?
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of just mousing over activating a download either, and I find that very scary. I too am curious if this is a newly developed technology or if it has existed for a long time now. If this becomes widespread, it could have disastrous results. This could catch even knowledgeable and wary computer users who know better than to actually choose to download something.
ReplyDeleteThis does not seem new to me, but pop-ups in any form does seem dangerous. That is pretty scary that simply moving over the cursor can download corruptible items onto your computer. Everyone knows not to click a pop-up, especially if it looks suspicious. However, the average person wouldn't know to avoid even moving the cursor over the pop-up.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be social engineering at its finest. I doubt anyone of us would suspect that breaking news articles could be dangerous to computers. I guess no Google search is completely safe. Information on the most common searches is easily accessible (http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/). Hackers out there do not have to work too hard to construct such traps.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when it comes to pop ups, I always treat them like they are some type of contagious file. I would recommend CTRL+ALT+DELETE, start the task manager and just close it from there. Again, social engineering, from waving the mouse to clicking fake red X buttons, predicts our behavior all too easily
This truly is amazing and frightening. Personally I always either exit out of such pop ups and think nothing of it. With today's technology, one can never seem to trust anything surrounding the internet. Yes, standard reputable sites are safe but who's to say these hackers will develop a software that will create such pop ups when logging into a reputable website such as CNN or MSNBC? Of course the software would eventually (and hopefully quickly) be caught and dismissed but however long the hackers have is scary to begin to ponder.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this article also initiates a discussion about government control of the internet. What and how can the government regulate such actions? I feel like these programs and malware would be recognized fairly quickly and be removed from popular search engines. I'm not the most tech-savy individual, but I would think this is possible.
I think that is also crazy that you can click over the pop-up. I feel like when I am searching the web I see loads of pop-ups that I just click off. I was interest in how this people were finding the website. Were they going through google or trusted search sites? I feel like if they went through google the first couple sites would be trusted sites.
ReplyDeleteThis was a brilliant idea by the hackers- not saying what they did was good.. obviously. From personal experience, many older people surfing the web have not been as informed as younger kids such as us that are constantly being taught to notice scams online. I am guessing that a lot of people that are still somewhat unfamiliar with the internet due to their age was definitely looking up information on Patrick Swayze. He was especially popular with people like our parents. I know even a simple scam online might get my dad. Even so, the fact that it could be downloaded without even clicking the ad affects nearly everyone that goes on the site. It is scary to think about the technology arising. You don't even need to fool anyone into believing your scam when your scam is downloaded without one's permission. Will anti-virus software continue to improve as fast as hacker ideas continue to grow? If not, we are all going to be in for a treat.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting on several levels. The first thing that comes to mind as I read it is, “how can this be stopped?” It seems that since the scamming has gotten out of the hands of victims in that there is almost no way to prevent a possible attack, there must be some concrete policies in place or law making in progress. I am not surprised that these hacking schemes have developed to this extent but it does bother me that the amount of judicial action has not evolved as quickly as necessary to prevent the majority of the cases from occurring.
ReplyDeleteI am also interested in how often this site would come up in a search engine, especially those which operate not only by retrieving sites with relevant material to the keyword but also ones that charge companies to have their URL is included in the search results. It makes me question rather a search engine site should also have accountability for returning malicious sites to the user without warning.
Overall, I think that the issue of information security and ill intent will become increasingly difficult to control as technology advances.