Some unknown hackers have installed a malicious Java applet on an international Forex Trading website, the program is designed to install malware on the visitor’s systems.
The program was detected by an internet security company WebSence, which claims that the website contained malware till Friday morning and now has been removed.
An applet is a small Internet-based program written in Java, a programming language for the Web, which can be downloaded by any computer. The applet is also able to run in HTML. The applet is usually embedded in an HTML page on a Web site and can be executed from within a browser.
The backdoor installed on the site was written in Visual Basic.Net and requires the Microsoft’s .NET framework to be successfully installed and running on a victim’s computer.
Meanwhile the spokesman from Websense stated that:
We can only speculate why. One of the likely reasons is that the ‘Blackhole exploit kit’ costs money either to rent or to buy,” . On the other hand, the attack vector that was used on that website can be created with tools that are available for free.
“It’s important to note that there was no exploit involved in this attack but rather a social engineering trick that requires the victim’s involvement – if successful it will allow a backdoor Trojan to run on the victim’s machine.
Now a days, hackers have been installing viruses on different websites in order to gain access of visitor’s computers. The tools for this purpose are easily available on under ground hacking forums, for example the famous Blackhole Exploit kit.