14 DAY TRIAL // The official website of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (nhs.uk) has been hacked. Malicious code has been planted on hundreds of pages in an effort to redirect visitors to malware sites or advertisements.
Reddit user Muzzers was the first to spot the infection. Initially, he published a list of close to 600 affected nhs.uk pages, but later, the number increased to 836.
“It seems that many pages include these malicious script tags, which then kicks off the whole ordeal. Hiding the script under a malicious url googleaspis.com instead of a valid googleapis.com,” Muzzers explained.
He says that NHS representatives have contacted him via email. They’re allegedly working to address the issue.
“Apologies to anyone having trouble navigating our website - we are aware of the issue and currently working to resolve it,” reads a message posted a couple of hours ago on the NHS Choices Twitter account.
While this is sorted out, users are advised to avoid visiting nhs.uk.
Update. It appears the website hasn't been breached after all. Instead, a coding error has been abused by cybercriminals.