Cyber Defense Magazine and Emsisoft warns: various NBC websites hacked and spreading malware

Feb. 26, 2013 - PRLog -- Today, at the kickoff of the biggest information security show on earth, RSA® Conference 2013, and in parallel with the first annual print-edition launch of Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM), the Executive Producer and Editor-in-Chief of our magazine have collaborated on their annual research initiative of predicting the year ahead.   They believe it will be a turning point in Cyber history for explosive growth in both Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare along with major citizen related privacy issues.  Their predictions are:

“Today, during the RSA Conference 2013, we think it’s even more important, now, than ever, that major websites that have been hacked, such as NBC.com, take the time to disclose their breaches, who they think were affected and what they have done to mitigate the situation.  It’s a growing burden on consumers who are victimized by visiting major business and news websites they trust that become infected….” Said, Davlat Aminov, Emsisoft Sales Director.
Visitors to famous American broadcaster NBC’s websites are in danger of having their PCs infected with malicious software. A hitherto unknown organization has obtained access to the NBC webservers. The attackers managed to inject malicious iframes into the website’s source codes. Using these and with the aid of the RedKit exploit kit, the attack attempts to infect unprotected computers with variants of the widely spread Citadel and ZeroAccess bots.

NBC belongs to the most visited TV and news portals worldwide. Now, unknown attackers have succeeded in hacking NBC.com and various subpages. The security experts at Emsisoft were alerted to this incident thanks to accumulating alerts in their own cloud service, Anti-Malware Network. Initial analysis shows that the attack attempts to install either Citadel or ZeroAccess malware on visitor’s computers by using different exploits. The attack appears to target an older version of Adobe Reader, and once again, the Java Runtime Environment.

The attack started on the main portal NBC.com and was taken down a few hours later. But the assault is not over yet as at this time the subsidiary websites latenightwithjimmyfallon.com and jaylenosgarage.com are still spreading malware.

Both of the exploits discovered and used in the attack (CVE-2013-0422 and CVE-2010-0188) are known and fixed in the latest versions of Java and Adobe Reader. The exact method can be changed at any time however, and such exploit kits typically only deliver attacks tailored specifically to the software on the victim’s system.

Emsisoft therefore recommends that people refrain from visiting NBC.com and subsidiary websites until further notice and to ensure that all programs on their computer are up to date. The security solution Emsisoft Anti-Malware detects all generic infection attempts with the Emsisoft Behavior Blocker. New signatures are currently being created to make cleaning already infected computers possible.

Constantly updated blog entry: http://blog.emsisoft.com/2013/02/21/nbc-website-hacked-di...

Information about the Emsisoft Behavior Blocker:

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/kb/articles/tec121016

Security guide: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/kb/articles/tec120101/

See more at: http://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/emsisoft-warns-various-nbc-websites-hacked-and-spreading-malware/  

About Emsisoft
Emsisoft is committed to providing the best virus detection and protection for home and business users. We achieve this by combining the technology of first-class dual scanners, with behavioral analysis that has been developed to perfection over many years.  Our fast-growing company is a leading European supplier of software technology for the generic detection of malicious code such as viruses, trojans, spyware, keyloggers, rootkits, and the likes. Our products are constantly winning top positions in independent comparative tests.  With millions of registered users, find out why at http://www.emsisoft.com


About Cyber Defense Magazine
Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM) is an RSA Conference 2013 media sponsor and the premier source for IT Security information, focused on best practices, new ideas and innovations and next generation INFOSEC companies that are on the cutting edge at solving real problems in INFORMATION SECURITY.  Our publication includes the monthly Cyber Warnings electronic online magazine, available for free and the annual Cyber Defense Magazine publication, also delivered electronically for free to registered members.  If you want a print edition of the publication, there's a reasonable subscription fee, but why not just get the free edition?  No strings attached.  CDM has also established a partnership with the University of Massachuset (UMASS) at Lowell, Massachusetts, USA  to create the Cyber Defense Test Labs (CDTL) which performs independent lab reviews of next generation INFOSEC products for the magazine.  Learn more about us at http://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/

PR CONTACT:  Jessica Quinn, marketing@cyberdefensemagazine.com  Tel: 1-800-518-5248 x2002