[pchelpers] News:Hackers able to reroute Net traffic

Rogue servers can orchestrate attacks that infect personal computers
with virus
Jordan Robertson, Associated Press

Tuesday, February 19, 2008


They're called "servers that lie."

Mendacious machines controlled by hackers that reroute Internet traffic
from infected computers to fraudulent Web sites are increasingly being
used to launch attacks, according to a research paper by researchers
with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google Inc.

The paper, published last week, estimates roughly 68,000 servers on the
Internet are returning malicious Domain Name System results, which means
people with compromised computers are sometimes being directed to the
wrong Web sites - and often have no idea.

The peer-reviewed paper, which offers one of the broadest measurements
yet of the number of rogue servers, was presented at the Internet
Society's Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San
Diego.

The fraud works like this: When a user with an affected computer tries
to go to, for example, Google's Web site, they are redirected to a fake
site loaded with malicious code or to a wall of ads whose profits flow
back to the hackers.

The hackers who hijack queries are looking to steal personal
information, from e-mail login credentials to credit data, and take over
infected machines.

The phony sites run the gamut. Some are stunningly convincing, others
amusingly bogus with spelling errors and typos.

More here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/19/BU97V1RI9.DTL&type=tech
-- 
John Durham
Site http://modecideas.com
Server hosted on Ubuntu 4.10
Good advice is like good paint. It only works when applied.



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