Malaysia, a name we seldom hear when it comes to news related to hacking and information security. But recently this country has been in news for the same.
A few months back, a news came. This time, anonymous (the international hacking group which came in news after 2003), had a new target for their activities, the Malaysian govt. As the news says, Malaysian govt. instructed south Asian countries to block the domains that were suspected to be related to the whole scam, thepitratebay.org and megaupload.com being a few prominent ones. Following that, Anonymous released a manifesto against the Malaysian government to show their disapproval against the Internet censorship and to teach the Malaysian users how to dodge the blocking measures. Apparently 51 sites have seen hacking attempts and 41 have been affected and/or disrupted in some way.
Now following the news, and somewhat related to it, we hear a new story. The word is that a ‘missing’ certificate which was legally signed by the Malaysian government was stolen and used to sign malware, enabling it to bypass OS protection which prevents the installation of untrusted/threatening applications. The certificate hails to the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute.
The question that occurs while reading this is, when the hackers are so capable of everything, why would they need a certificate? The answer is simple, the certificate enables them to overcome warnings that Microsoft Windows gives when users try to install unsigned applications.
The Malaysian websites have never been a charming target for the hacker groups, probably this was the reason that most of them still run the out-dated versions of CMS Joomla and most of the times they can be hacked by even less skilled hackers.
It's not that previously such cases haven’t occurred. The famous StuxNet Worm, which was the first worm ever made that targeted industrial systems, was a similar kind of example. The duqu malware which had striking similarities to StuxNet was also using private certificates.
Coming back to the malware that has spread, it basically uses Adobe reader to exploit the software first and then drop its feet in the system through an infected PDF file.
Following the news, Netherland’s KPN market has also cancelled the issue of new certificates due to this security breach.
Due to this news, a scary wave must be spread among people that exploitation of their systems is becoming easier for the hackers and a security breach and website vulnerability is becoming more common due to the faults done by others and such cases like “private signed certificates” give hackers much more powers than usual skill. This not only causes threat to govt. websites and systems but by affecting common software like windows and adobe reader, they ultimately target common people. Hence, we need to stay more secure and advanced and also, need the govt. to do the same.
A few months back, a news came. This time, anonymous (the international hacking group which came in news after 2003), had a new target for their activities, the Malaysian govt. As the news says, Malaysian govt. instructed south Asian countries to block the domains that were suspected to be related to the whole scam, thepitratebay.org and megaupload.com being a few prominent ones. Following that, Anonymous released a manifesto against the Malaysian government to show their disapproval against the Internet censorship and to teach the Malaysian users how to dodge the blocking measures. Apparently 51 sites have seen hacking attempts and 41 have been affected and/or disrupted in some way.
Now following the news, and somewhat related to it, we hear a new story. The word is that a ‘missing’ certificate which was legally signed by the Malaysian government was stolen and used to sign malware, enabling it to bypass OS protection which prevents the installation of untrusted/threatening applications. The certificate hails to the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute.
The question that occurs while reading this is, when the hackers are so capable of everything, why would they need a certificate? The answer is simple, the certificate enables them to overcome warnings that Microsoft Windows gives when users try to install unsigned applications.
The Malaysian websites have never been a charming target for the hacker groups, probably this was the reason that most of them still run the out-dated versions of CMS Joomla and most of the times they can be hacked by even less skilled hackers.
It's not that previously such cases haven’t occurred. The famous StuxNet Worm, which was the first worm ever made that targeted industrial systems, was a similar kind of example. The duqu malware which had striking similarities to StuxNet was also using private certificates.
Coming back to the malware that has spread, it basically uses Adobe reader to exploit the software first and then drop its feet in the system through an infected PDF file.
Following the news, Netherland’s KPN market has also cancelled the issue of new certificates due to this security breach.
Due to this news, a scary wave must be spread among people that exploitation of their systems is becoming easier for the hackers and a security breach and website vulnerability is becoming more common due to the faults done by others and such cases like “private signed certificates” give hackers much more powers than usual skill. This not only causes threat to govt. websites and systems but by affecting common software like windows and adobe reader, they ultimately target common people. Hence, we need to stay more secure and advanced and also, need the govt. to do the same.
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