Compliance Management, Privacy

Grinch hacks Santa Claus site, but StopBadware saves Christmas

Not even Santa Claus is safe from hackers this year, as StopBadware.org reported today that a philanthropist with the legal name of Santa Claus had his site targeted by hackers who uploaded an iframe that installed malicious software onto visitors' computers

The "neighborhood watch" organization had initially flagged the Nevada-resident's site, www[dot]santaslink[dot]net as a site containing malicious content. Through StopBadware's partnership with Google, vistiors directed to the children's advocate site through the search engine were being warned that they were at risk to enter.

When Claus contacted StopBadware to ask why his site was being filtered, the organization did a little digging and found that someone had snuck into the site and planted a badware link without Claus' knowledge.

"We noticed right away that nestled all snug in the bottom of his homepage was a nice little bit of code containing a badware link," wrote Jason Callina on the group's blog, "specifically, an iframe that would attempt to install badware onto visitors' computers via a JavaScript exploit."

Claus and his team removed the offending link, but as of late this afternoon, Google was still reporting the site as potentially harmful.

Click here to email West Coast Bureau Chief Ericka Chickowski.

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