Identity Thieves Target Tourism, Charity Websites
June 06, 2007
The Guardian says the Websites infected by the hackers include travel agent, hotel, charity and government sites. Because most of the sites are located in Italy, security experts are calling the security exploit "the Italian job."Trend Micro, Websense and Symantec are among the Internet security firms to have issued advisories about the exploit.
According to The Guardian, the attackers used a Russian-developed attack toolkit to implant codes that download a "keylogger" onto the computer of anyone visiting the targeted Websites. The keylogger enables hackers to monitor any activity on an infected computer and to take control of the machine, giving them access to any bank details, credit card information or passwords that the victim enters.
The attack toolkit is available for £350 (US$698) on the Web, the Guardian says. It is not known how many computers have been infected by the attacks, which are believed to have begun in the middle of last week.
Security experts say that while this kind of attack is not new, what is unprecedented is the number of Websites targeted and the fact that the hackers attacked tourism and charity Websites.
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