NBC.com hacked to serve up banking malware

Websites affiliated with U.S. broadcaster NBC were hacked for several hours on Thursday, serving up malicious software intended to steal bank account details.

On its own technology blog, NBC released a statement saying, "We've identified the problem and are working to resolve it. No user information has been compromised."

Sites such as NBC.com are a frequent target for hackers since the high volume of visitors offers a chance to infect many people in a short period of time.

Several computer security companies said the main NBC.com website had been modified to serve up an iframe, which is a way to load content into a website from another domain.

The iframe loaded an exploit kit called Redkit, which tries to see if a visitor is running unpatched software, according to a blog post from Securi, a computer security company based in Menifee, California. The style of attack is known as a drive-by download and can infect a computer when a user merely views a website.

NBC.com was temporarily blacklisted by Google after the attack. Facebook also stopped directing users to NBC.com. Securi wrote that other NBC sites, including ones for TV talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jay Leno, were also affected.

The hack follows the release of a report this week from security vendor Mandiant about a long-running hacking campaign allegedly based in Shanghai that targeted U.S. corporations, although ...

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237044/NBC.com_hacked_to_serve_up_banking_malware