Kaspersky Sees Site Hacked, Serves Up Malware

It's always hilarious when a security firm has its site hacked or has some other security-related SNAFU occur that you would think their own products could prevent. Such is the case with Kaspersky Labs, which recently saw its site not just hacked, but serving up malware. Reports first came from users on Kaspersky's own support forums. The company initially denied the issue, with tech support and this user having the following conversation:

I called Kaspersky this morning and they are denying that this happened. They are stating that I must have went to a phishing site or a site that looks like them. Sorry Kaspersky, I typed the correct URL above and was redirected directly from your web site. I even went to my order email from Kaspersky I purchase 7-months ago. I clicked the download link from that email and sure enough I was redirected to the same malware site. Kaspersky said that email was probably a fake email. Really, because it has all my order information on it and it worked 7-months ago. If that email was a fake, then there are even more concerns.

Kaspersky, however, finally 'fessed up. They said, in a statement:

“The website was simulating a Windows XP Explorer window and a popup window showing scanning process on the local computer and offering the user a fake antivirus program to install. The domain was making these redirections for 3.5 hours in total.”

It is, again one of those attacks that rely of customers believing that their PC is infected when a popup appears, and clicking to allow an installation to occurs.  You'd think folks with Kaspersky products on their systems wouldn't be worried, wouldn't you?


Kaspersky said that the attack didn't expose customer data and that the exploit was contained quickly after it was discovered, which took some time, we assume, since they were initially denying it.