[ISN] 3 million gov't websites assailed by vicious hidden links

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2010 02:08:31 -0500 (CDT)
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90872/7150848.html

By People's Daily Online
September 26, 2010

Shen Yang, a doctorial tutor at School of Information Management under 
Wuhan University, showed reporters on Sept. 22 at his office that there 
are some vicious hidden links among some government-run Web sites with 
domain names ending in "gov.cn," such as those linking to the "latest 
information on the Hong Kong Jockey Club" and "how to buy Mark Six" Web 
pages, according to a report by Changjiang Daily.

"These are hidden link attacks," said Shen. "Certain text is invisible 
for normal online browsing and they have links to illegal Web pages 
containing pornographic, gambling and fraudulent items and political 
content."

Some educational websites have also become targets. There is a link to 
the "Hong Kong Jockey Club – Predicting thr results of Mark Six" on the 
website of one of China's outstanding universities and there is a 
"mobile phone bugging device" link on the website of a communication 
school of a Chongqing-based university.

According to the data on hidden link attacks on government websites 
collected by Shen, more than 10 percent of China's more than 30 million 
government websites are under hidden links attacks.

Hackers can willfully change the Web pages at websites just like posting 
ads on the walls of other people's living rooms. Some hackers even sell 
the rights to access website servers.

"These rights can be priced at only 50 yuan, but hackers can still 
generate enormous profits if they sell tens of thousands of such 
rights," Shen said.

It is known that much of the domestic security software has not been 
able to detect hidden links.


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Received on Mon Sep 27 2010 - 00:08:31 PDT

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