Security hole in Syrian opposition site used to spy on dissidents
Government (Foreign) // Syria
Hackers have been taking advantage of a bug in Adobe Flash since September 2013 to track rebels complaining about the Assad regime.
Adobe just released a security patch for the defect.
The victimized site was created by the Syrian Ministry of Justice to provide a forum for citizens to criticize law and order violations.
The bad guys conducted what is known as a “watering hole attack” on the insecure site, http://jpic[dot]gov[dot]sy/, likely by dropping a folder there, in which they stored malicious software that redirects targets to a spyware-infected webpage.
One of the attackers announced the hack through Twitter last fall.
The malware has been detected on at least seven computers in Syria.
“The attacks that exploited the flaw in Adobe Player product are probably the result of a carefully planned operation made by high skilled hackers who have had access to 0-day exploits,” or malicious code that takes advantage of secret bugs, Security Affairs reports. “The attackers used the exploits on a simple website to conduct a surgical operation avoiding to be detected.”
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