Blue Coat - Malware Organizations Abusing ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Massacre

According to research conducted by security firm Blue Coat, Malware organizations are quick to latch onto tragedy to distribute malware and they are getting better at it with each new disaster and this time they are exploiting the tragic Charlie Hebdo.

Extremists attacked Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine, on 7th January, 2015 and shot dead its 12 journalists in cold-blood. They were protesting against the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed which was drawn by cartoonists of the magazine.

Security researchers of Blue Coat have discovered a thread of malware which is being distributed by employing the slogan of #JesuisCharlie to dupe victims into downloading the infamous DarkComet malware. Te slogan started trending on Twitter and other places in the wake of this attack and has been tweeted more than 5 million times till date.

The cyber-criminals try to dupe innocents into clicking on maligned links or downloading masked malware by pretending that it contains prevalent major news story.

The DarkComet currently used in this case is a renowned a remote administration tool (RAT), a strain of software which gives cyber crooks remote access to the system on getting installed.

French hacker Jean-Pierre (also known as DarkcoderSc) created DarkComet which is freely available. He stopped to develop it in 2012 when he found that it was being employed by Syrian Government to secretly spy on anti-government Internauts.

Forbes.com published news on 15th January, 2015 quoting Hugh Thompson, Chief Security Strategist of Blue Coat as saying "These online attacks are effective because earth-shattering events put off people and disturb their usual levels of security hygiene." The attackers are not necessarily trying to send political message but encash on the emotions of people due to such events.

Thompson says that this incident created a lot of shock which the world experienced around (the Charlie Hebdo shooting) resulting lot of solidarity.

Cyber attackers have hit 19,000 French websites since this deadly shooting.Darkreading.com reported on 15th January, 2015 quoting Admiral Arnaud Coustilliere, Head of cyberdefense of French military, as saying "We have never seen before. This is the first time that a country has been faced with such a large wave."

» SPAMfighter News - 1/23/2015