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WikiPedia Targeted By Malware Creators

November 6th, 2006

WikiPedia, the collaborative encyclopaedia has been attacked by spammers attempting to spread malware.

A page was created on the German version of WikiPedia linking to a fake fix for a new version of the Blaster worm, which affected over 50,000 Windows computers in the summer of 2003.

Fortunately action was taken by WikiPedia and its less nefarious editors to remove the page, but not before the spammers had sent out an email, claiming to be from WikiPedia, suggesting readers should go and download the fix.

“The good news is that the authorities at Wikipedia quickly identitifed and edited the article on their site,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. “Unfortunately, however, the previous version of the page was still present in the archive and was continuing to point to malicious code. The hackers were thus able to send out spam pointing people to the page on Wikipedia, and try and lead them into infection.”

That archived page has now also been killed, meaning that the incident is hopefully over. However, this has yet again illustrated the vulnerability of user-edited content on the web. WikiPedia content has in the past been rewritten by users attempting to massage the truth by covering up a dodgy past history, or trying to create one for a rival.

Entry Filed under: Online Life