Cyber Criminals Deface Wikipedia Page on FIFA World Cup 2010

Security researchers at Sophos report that cyber criminals (possibly spammers) defaced Wikipedia's 2010 FIFA World Cup web-page on July 14, 2010.

Sophos states that despite the competition concluded on July 11, 2010 when Spain was declared the champion, a huge number of people are still visiting the Wikipedia page to get the news regarding the matches played.

Consequently, spammers find the page a favorable zone for attack. They have injected a gigantic web-link "Want to be inches larger?" that takes users to a Canadian Pharmacy site.

Giving more details about the spam in her blog message, Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Advisor at Sophos, Canada, wrote that different from usual defacements on Wikipedia, the current one was spam oriented. Different from most spam promoting cheap Canadian medicines and penis pills, which engaged a few "medical professionals" for canvassing the website, the current one utilized a photograph depicting a husband-and-wife satisfied, as reported by Sophos on July 14, 2010.

In addition, the expert outlined that in the new spam campaign, there was no malware in the page containing the web-link. It merely attempted at selling the user some fun.

Wisniewski also noted that it wasn't anything new to have unauthorized edits on Wikipedia. However, it seemed that a tussle going on between those trying to maintain order and those trying to promote Viagra. An examination of the past story of the page showed that there were two different events when criminals launched the spam on July 14, 2010, with two separate individuals - Jetlagorange and Jarjarbinks10 doing the launches. Fortunately, both the accounts had been terminated ever-since.

Meanwhile, the security researchers in light of the latest spam run repeat some preventive measures for Web-users. They advise for deploying high quality security software including anti-spam filters so that the harmful spam mails don't succeed in scamming them. Incidents like the spam campaign just discussed prove that the concept of 'safe surfing' is rather fictitious. Moreover, they again ruin Sophos' myth about Web-security that just gambling, porn and other devious websites pose danger.

» SPAMfighter News - 23-07-2010

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