Abusing Blogger To Deliver Malware
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Yesterday we released Hotlink Alarm Case Study HA-3-08. We've updated the Case Study today to reflect an emerging pattern.
http://hotlinkalarm.com/news/HotlinkALARMCaseStudy3-08.pdf
Malware-delivering Blogger Blogs have triggered a number of HotlinkAlarm Alerts on a customer's website in recent hours.
Blogger blogs are free, of course. And Blogger itself gives users a choice between hosting the blogs on blogspot.com or the blogger's own website. Blogger itself is a marvelous blogging platform.
But some people aren't satisfied with what Blogger provides for free. They seek to abuse the very tool the good folks at Blogger are providing them.
The blogs that triggered the Hotlink Alarm Alerts were scraping content from the HotlinkALARM user's website -- code, image URLs, html and text -- and simply pasting it into their sites.
HotlinkALARM detected hotlinks to images the customer chose to protect. After the customer received the HotlinkALARM emails, he visited the URLs listed in the Alert emails -- and was relieved to see the HotlinkALARM substitution graphics on the page. :-)
Without HotlinkALARM, his company's logo and other graphics would have been showing on pages delivering malware.
People frequently stoop to new lows to make money online. Here's what the illicit bloggers using Blogger and blogspot.com are doing.
1.) They're getting free hosting.
2.) They're stealing fresh content from other sites, taking code and graphics right along with it.
3.) They're posting it on free Blogger Blogs to make it appear legitimate.
4.) They're embedding malware on the page -- literally driving traffic to their sites with someone else's legitimate work.
We're pleased that HotlinkALARM exposed these abusive sites and took away the thieves' power to abuse intellectual property, dilute brands and confuse customers.
Patrick Pretty
The "Most Beautiful Little Boy In The World" -- 1964
Labels: Blogger blogspot malware scraping content
posted by Patrick Pretty @ 4:20 PM,
