Free personal web hosting sites providing safe havens for hackers
Free personal web hosting sites providing safe havens for hackers
Free web hosting sites are increasingly being used for nefarious purposes by hackers, with one Internet management software provider alone discovering thousands of cases of hackers creating web hosting accounts to spread malicious code, spyware and steal private data.
Websense Security Labs, which reported the discovery, stated that free personal web hosting sites are increasingly being exploited by hackers seeking affordable and anonymous ways to store and disseminate mobile malicious code (MMC) and dangerous types of spyware, such as keyloggers, which are designed to steal personal and confidential information. Since the beginning of 2005, Websense Security Labs has discovered more than 2,500 incidents of these websites distributing MMC, Trojan horses and keyloggers.
In the first two weeks of July, the company discovered more than 500 incidents of free web hosting sites that were created to spread keyloggers, Trojan horse downloaders, Trojan horse droppers, and other harmful spyware and malware.
Earlier this year, Websense also reported that free blogging accounts were being used to harbour malcode - this trend is now expanding to any form of free web hosting site. The recently uncovered sites include those available for hosting online journals, photo albums, greeting cards, music, sports 'fan' pages and online scrapbooks, among many other popular purposes.
"The growth of this trend is alarming. July has seen a major boom-in the first two weeks alone we found more instances than in May and June combined," said Dan Hubbard, senior director of security and technology research for Websense.
These fraudulent, free personal websites have an average lifespan of two to four days, making them difficult to trace. In addition, a majority of the new sites discovered have been hosted in Brazil or the United Kingdom and contain text written in Portuguese and English.
Hubbard continued: "Some of the sites may be created with automated shared hacking software and free online tools, while others are built to appear more legitimate. For example, one of the sites included music that accompanied a greeting card message which runs while your computer is being infected with spyware."
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