Advertisements for abortion pills scattered on the site

Mar 4, 2015 00:55 GMT  ·  By

Cybercriminals leveraged a vulnerability in the Perspectives website and managed to access a database containing eCheck payment information for website transactions.

It appears that intruders also managed to publish unauthorized advertisements on certain portions of the site, promoting abortion pills.

Perspectives is a religious Christian course lasting for 15 weeks and focusing on four aspects (Biblical, Historical, Cultural and Strategic) that highlight God’s global purpose.

Payment options have been closed to mitigate further risks

The owners of the website allege that the adverts were probably placed so that the attackers increased the popularity in search engines of a page they control. However, the risk of drive-by attacks through malvertising has not been excluded.

“These advertisements were hidden in our class site to the public viewer and were most likely used to gain greater search engine page ranking for other websites,” James Mason, National Director of Perspectives USA, says in a letter to customers.

The date of the incident has been traced to September 2014, but the breach was discovered recently, causing Perspectives to temporarily shut down payment options smack in the middle of spring registrations, one of the busiest times of the year.

Data accessed illegally is considered compromised

Mason says that encryption was in place “to the level of major financial institutions for transmission of financial data,” and that this measure of protection has been increased even more after the incident.

No indication has been found that the attacker stole personal information, but even so, the data is treated as compromised. As such, anyone who made online eCheck payments is recommended to turn to their financial institutions for advice on how possible risks can be avoided.

In the wake of the breach, Perspectives has implemented new policies to avoid going through a similar experience in the future.

The measures are designed to be long-term and applied on a constant basis. They refer to security enhancements, regular vulnerability testing.

Direct actions stemming from the incident include reconstructing the production database in order to restore the integrity of any piece of information that may have been lost or damaged, as well as collaborating with law enforcement to determine the identity of the attackers and bring them to justice.