Malware Attack Has Targeted Match.com

Cityam.com reported on 3rd September, 2015 stating that online daters of UK could be the victim of cyber crime as researchers have found a malware attack on millions of users of Match.com.

Match.com is a dating website designed for singles which splits it from Ashley Madison website and by its own account is quite popular. Popularity attracts attention which is not always encouraging and it looks that Match.com website has met its fate.

According to the security firm Malwarebytes, the website has fallen victim to bad advertisements which is known as malvertising that look to part partner-less punters from their pennies.

Malwarebytes stressed that the hack is bad but not the horrible ever seen. There are around 5.5 million users vulnerable to this attack that is based on the Bedep Trojan and can expand itself to pockets of users and their privacy via the CryptoWall ransomware panic.

Malwarebytes noted that there is less cost with high returns for attackers. Theinquirer.net published a report on 3rd September, 2015 quoting Jerome Segura, Senior Security Researcher of Malwarebytes, as saying '36c was the cost per 1,000 impressions for the booty trapped ad which is nothing as compared to the revenues generated by infected computers. For example, CryptoWall asks for $500 per victim."

Spokesperson of Match.com said: We consider the security of our clients very seriously. Earlier while investigating a potential malware issue, we took precautionary measure by suspending advertising on our UK site temporarily. Cityam. Our security experts could identify and isolate the affected advert which does not represent a breach of our site or our user's data as published by cityam.com on 3rd September, 2015.

We have not received any reports from our users till date about their victimization by these adverts. Nevertheless, we advise all users to protect themselves from this type of cyber-threat by updating their software of anti malware/antivirus.

Scmagazine.com published news on 3rd September, 2015 quoting a comment of David Kennerley, Senior Manager for Threat Research of Webroot, as "Malvertising is going to be a method for fraudsters with Yahoo! and Australian operator Telstra also became victim last month. Money is the main motivation for attacks of this type and often these malicious ads are for added attacks."

» SPAMfighter News - 9/18/2015