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Comments on: Hacked embassy websites found pushing malware

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Not the first, and sadly probably won't be the last..

By Graham Cluley Posted Thursday 24th January 2008 14:49 GMT

Last September webpages of the US Consulate General in St Petersburg were compromised by hackers. On that occasion cybercriminals planted the Mal/ObfJS-C malicious code, that then attempted to download further malware from a remote server.

As is the norm these days, it was all a ruse to steal business and personal data from unwary visitors. More info was posted on the Sophos blog at http://www.sophos.com/news/2007/09/consulate.html

With something like 6000 new webpages discovered each day carrying malicious code (and over 80% of those being legit websites that the bad guys have hacked) it's becoming clear that you can't trust *anyone* these days to have a squeaky clean site.

I think it's time for the website owners and webhosts to take some responsibility for the security and patching of their sites, rather than just hoping that Joe Public will ensure that their browser and visiting computer are properly defended.