Apple.com hit in latest mass hack attack
Cupertino succumbs to Jedi server trick
A
hack attack that can expose users to malware exploits has infected more
than 1 million webpages, at least two of which belong to Apple.
The
SQL injection attacks bombard the websites of legitimate companies with
database commands that attempt to add hidden links that lead to malware
exploits. While most of the sites that fell prey appear to belong to
mom-and-pop operations, two of the infections hit pages Apple uses to
promote iTunes podcasts, this Google search
shows. The malicious links appear to have been removed since Google last indexed the pages in early August.
In all, at least 538,000 pages have been compromised by the same attack.
Attacks the bear similar fingerprints but point to different domains,
as seen here, here and here – have claimed close to 500,000 more.
“These
attacks have been ongoing and are changing pretty often,” said Mary
Landesman, a senior researcher with ScanSafe, a Cisco-owned service that
provides customers with real-time intelligence about malicious sites.
“Interestingly, many of the sites compromised have been involved in
repeated compromises over the past few months. It's not clear whether
these are the work of the same attackers or are competing attacks.”
[...]
The attacks that hit Apple used highly encoded text
strings to sneak past web-application filters. SANS handler Manuel
Humberto Santander Pelaez has technical details here. They are only the latest in a series of hack attacks to hit large numbers of websites.