4 X Security Team: Mass Attack JavaScript injection

Mass Attack JavaScript injection - UN and UK

Thursday, May 15, 2008 by Mzer0 Alerts

Mass Attack JavaScript injection - UN and UK Government websites compromised - Date: 04.22.2008

Threat Type: Malicious Web Site / Malicious Code

This mass injection is remarkably similar to the attack we saw earlier this month. When a user browses to a compromised site, the injected JavaScript loads a file named 1.js which is hosted on http://www.nihao[removed].com The JavaScript code then redirects the user to 1.htm (also hosted on the same server). Once loaded, the file attempts 8 different exploits (the attack last April utilised 12). The exploits target Microsoft applications, specifically browsers not patched against the VML exploit MS07-004 as well as other applications. Ominously files named McAfee.htm and Yahoo.php are also called by 1.htm but are no longer active at the time of writing.

There are further similarities too between the two mass attacks. Resident on the latest malicious domain is a tool used in the execution of the attack. An analysis of that tool can be found in the ISC diary entry here. Mentioned in that diary entry is http://www.2117[removed].net. Our blog on that attack can be found here. It appears that same tool was used to orchestrate this attack too.

When we first started tracking the use of this domain, the malicious JavaScript was still making use of http://www.nmida[removed].com/:

Now the attackers are referring to a file hosted on the new domain of http://www.nihao[removed].com:

Sites of varying content have been infected including UK government sites, and a United Nations website as can be seen by the Google search results below.

The number of sites affected is in the hundreds of thousands: