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Government-backed website linked to malvertisement

by Sarah Griffiths on 31 March 2011, 09:22

Tags: UK Government

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The government's new StartUp Britain website has accidently linked would-be entrepreneurs to malware, according to reports.

The website designed to encourage start up companies launched on Monday and according to security firm Sophos, linked users to a page hosting fake anti-virus programs, the BBC reported.

While the link was reportedly removed quickly after the launch it will nevertheless be an embarrassment for the government, which has been trumpeting its start up vision since getting into power.

StartUp Britain told Auntie: "There were some issues with a link on the website at the launch. This issue has been addressed and any links that were not operating as intended have been amended or removed."

A senior threat researcher at Sophos called Paul Baccas apparently said that the link snuck into an article about Warren Buffet and took users to a bogus banking site.

"It went to a third-party site, bankling.com, where users were redirected to a fake anti-virus page given a prompt saying their computer was infected and encouraging them to download a fix," he reportedly said.

Of course the ‘fix' apparently contained malware but is believed to have only targeted users of Internet Explorer, including the newest versions.

‘Malverts' have loomed relatively large in the news of late after Spotify accidently ran an advert that contained a virus, which targeted Windows users, The Inquirer reported.

Last month, the London Stock Exchange reportedly hosted booby-trapped ads asking visitors to download fake security software.



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