USAID website hacked

Dec 3, 2007 10:46 GMT  ·  By

In case you're wondering what's with the title, let me explain it in a few words. I guess you have heard of USAID, an US organization providing "humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries", as it is mentioned on the official website. As the motto of the organization is "From the American People" and the website was hacked a few days ago, being injected with sex and pornographic links, it resulted in "Sex And Porn... From The American People." Now, let's get back to the story.

Patrick Jordan, part of Sunbelt Malware Research Team, wrote on the Sunbelt Blog that the official website of the organization was hacked, the attackers inserting links redirecting the users to sex and pornographic material. The attack was noticed through Google, the search engine that displayed results to several pages hosted on the main USAID domain, which included several terms, such as "sex" and "porn".

Just like usual, clicking on those malicious results redirected the users to some dangerous websites, asking them to install a codec in order to display a porn movie. Obviously, it's only a Zlob Trojan, as the same source informs. Usually, this type of threat serves as a way to deploy additional infections on an affected system, being rated as high risk.

"Trojan-Downloader.Zlob.Media-Codec is a program that typically purports to be a needed upgrade to Windows Media Player in order to view adult oriented videos on certain websites. However, Trojan-Downloader.Zlob.Media-Codec actually downloads and installs additional malware on the user's machine," it is mentioned in the description published on the Sunbelt website.

Although I had expected to find the website clean, I was shocked to see that it actually linked to more dangerous content. That's why you're advised to avoid clicking on malicious links related to this website, unless you're sure that your computer is safe and protected against the Trojan horse.