AVG: U.S. Government Sites Hacked, Spewing Malware
AVG: U.S. Government Sites Hacked, Spewing Malware
Posted 05/04/2010 at 7:13pm
| by Paul Lilly
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury found itself the victim of hacker attacks on three of its websites, all of which proceeded to distribute malicious software to visitors, security firm AVG says.
According to AVG researcher Roger Thompson, as of Monday, three domains associated with the home page of the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing were actively serving up malicious software. While the Treasury Department has so far refrained from commenting on the attacks, by Tuesday morning, all three sites appear to have been taken offline.
Thompson says the hackers injected a small amount of dirty iframe HTML code that redirected visitors to a website in the Ukraine that launched a plethora of web-based attacks. This isn't the first time the same Ukraine website has done this, having previously targeted known software bugs, including flaws in Adobe's Reader software, Yahoo News reports.
How the attackers managed to infiltrate the Treasury Department's websites is so far unknown.
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IFLATLINEI
May 05, 2010 at 5:49am
If you cant even go to a government website and be safe why in the world would anyone trust them to secure our information? You cant. And this is also exactly why the cloud is a bad idea. Assume nothing people. No one will take your security seriously. Its up to you!
whr4usa
May 04, 2010 at 8:54pm
government efficiency
centralized security
technology of the beauracracy
an american oxymoron
PawBear
May 04, 2010 at 8:18pm
Yes we've got enemies, but all too often we prove ourselves to be an incompetent bunch of idiots. Can't we protect ourselves? Besides, this is likely criminal in nature, not political.
Pinkyblister
May 04, 2010 at 7:44pm
Imagine if the CIA did the same thing to a Ukraine or Russian government website. You would hear worldwide condemnation of the United States. I would welcome such a response to the never-ending, continued attacks by the old USSR countries and China.
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