July 21, 2009 - 8:50am
Digital Spy, a high-traffic website frequented by surfers gorging on information about celebrities and reality TV programmes, initiated investigation into the reports that its subscribers outside the UK have been exposed to malware.
As with the previous attack, news that the site might be serving up malware showed up via posts on Digital Spy's forum, where subscribers reported warnings from their anti-virus scanner and hijacked connections, re-routing them via dating sites, among other examples of weird behaviour.
In addition, a Digital Spy staffer confirmed to forum readers that untoward content had been served up to US visitors and asked to email everything suspicious they see to forum.tracking AT digitalspy.co.uk:
Just to say we have encountered something odd when viewing DS from the USA and are in "ton of bricks" (as in "come down on them like a...") mode. Such behaviour on our site is totally unacceptable.
If you ever see anything else suspicious please email as many as you're able to out of screen grabs, source code, JavaScript code to forum.tracking AT digitalspy.co.uk. It really helps us track these things down.
Digital Spy users were last exposed to malware via malicious banner ads that appeared in early June in an attack ultimately geared towards distributing rogue security software. Although the site responded far more promptly to concerns in its forums this time around, the latest incident still raises troubling questions about the overall security of the site.
As with the previous attack, news that the site might be serving up malware showed up via posts on Digital Spy's forum, where subscribers reported warnings from their anti-virus scanner and hijacked connections, re-routing them via dating sites, among other examples of weird behaviour.
In addition, a Digital Spy staffer confirmed to forum readers that untoward content had been served up to US visitors and asked to email everything suspicious they see to forum.tracking AT digitalspy.co.uk:
Just to say we have encountered something odd when viewing DS from the USA and are in "ton of bricks" (as in "come down on them like a...") mode. Such behaviour on our site is totally unacceptable.
If you ever see anything else suspicious please email as many as you're able to out of screen grabs, source code, JavaScript code to forum.tracking AT digitalspy.co.uk. It really helps us track these things down.
Digital Spy users were last exposed to malware via malicious banner ads that appeared in early June in an attack ultimately geared towards distributing rogue security software. Although the site responded far more promptly to concerns in its forums this time around, the latest incident still raises troubling questions about the overall security of the site.