14 DAY TRIAL // The cybercriminals are now using legitimate websites to spread child pornography on the Internet. Moreover, most of the webpages are clean and some of them are even targeting children so the threat is extremely dangerous. Security company Sophos discovered this campaign of child pornography distribution and informed us that cybercriminals are trying to use the message boards from these legitimate websites to send the users to malicious pages.
Very often, the dangerous webpages are trying to install malware or other type of infected files on the visitors' computers, in a move meant to make them vulnerable and allow the attackers to steal valuable information.
"What's most worrying about these posts is that they're happening on legitimate sites - any website can fall victim to an attack, no matter what the content," said Fraser Howard, Principal Virus Researcher at Sophos according to an article published on security company's page. "This means that innocent web surfers, including children, may stumble across this kind of offensive content. Every web host must ensure that all areas of their site are fully protected and that all user input is carefully screened before it is posted on the site."
As usual, the hosting providers are encouraged to update their security solutions to the latest versions and try to filter the content that appears on the official page. Although it's very difficult to block the dangerous messages sent by the users, Sophos encourages web hosts to enable moderated comments that will allow them to block unwanted content.
"While analyzing detections of malicious websites a colleague pointed out five separate websites containing 60 instances of posts enticing readers to various child porn related sites. The posts all have a subject referencing 'lolitas' and contain other words that would feasibly be on an offensive words list," Sophos added about the recently discovered threat.