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WikiLeaks Has Morphed from Journalism Hotshot to Malware Hub

12 points by steven 10y ago

robert_foss 10y ago
I would highly doubt that Wikileaks is serving malware.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  They're not, they're serving email databases, which contain spam which contains malware: > Bulgarian security expert Vesselin Bontchev ... figured that the average email database is likely to contain some harmful attachments, and that casual WikiLeaks visitors might now be endangered. His hunch was right, and he quickly uncovered a collection of malware...
  - Senji 10y ago
    >and that casual WikiLeaks visitors might now be endangered The horror.
- usefulcat 10y ago
  A collection of recently disclosed Turkish emails contains malware, as described in the linked article.
ddt_Osprey 10y ago
Boy, just like so many MP3 sharing services of yester-year. What a curious development! Standard practice to poison the well of your enemies. This is a phased approach by the way, and malware is a preliminary step. Next come reputation smearing forms of pornography, and hardware destroying payloads for the ones that have no reputation to smear.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  That's what I thought, too, when I just read the headline. But on reading the article, it becomes clear that they're just insufficiently curating the files they're distributing. What should happen if some corrupt official's email contains a malware attachment? There is some value in not curating the data - it would be good to know if they responded to a social engineering attack, for example. Perhaps a payload reveals that some other government got into their email years ago, and has been blackmailing them? Similarly, it would be informative to find that someone was using email to share pornography of themselves, especially if that pornography was blackmail material, but there ought to be some curation.
  - ddt_Osprey 10y ago
    Oh, clickbait. Nevermind. I suppose maybe this identifies the polarity of backchannel.com's political alignment.
ungzd 10y ago
"Spam" folder in my Gmail account contains lots of malware too. It means Google is evil and gmail is designed to spread malware.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Clearly Google is not evil for having malware in your spam folder. But it would be unethical to post the contents of your email account, expecting people to download and inspect the email in a context where they could be infected by the malware in your spam folder, without at least a warning that it contained viruses. I think the best resolution would be to post the contents of non-spam mailbox folders with a warning that some attachments may contain viruses, or scrub attachments. Post the spam folder and suspicious attachments separately, most people aren't interested in that part of the email archive. This would save bandwidth and prevent users from becoming infected. The small risk that something important in the spam folder is missed is outweighed by these benefits, IMO.
- meira 10y ago
  I agree that Google fits the description, but not Wikileaks :P
siegecraft 10y ago
I see this cites the 'Turkish women were exposed' meme, rebuttal here (https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-against-wikileaks-looks-like/ https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-aga...) but really all you had to do was see Conde Nast at the top and you could predict the tenor of the piece..

12 points by steven 10y ago

robert_foss 10y ago

I would highly doubt that Wikileaks is serving malware.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
They're not, they're serving email databases, which contain spam which contains malware: > Bulgarian security expert Vesselin Bontchev ... figured that the average email database is likely to contain some harmful attachments, and that casual WikiLeaks visitors might now be endangered. His hunch was right, and he quickly uncovered a collection of malware...
- Senji 10y ago
  >and that casual WikiLeaks visitors might now be endangered The horror.
usefulcat 10y ago
A collection of recently disclosed Turkish emails contains malware, as described in the linked article.

ddt_Osprey 10y ago

Boy, just like so many MP3 sharing services of yester-year. What a curious development! Standard practice to poison the well of your enemies. This is a phased approach by the way, and malware is a preliminary step. Next come reputation smearing forms of pornography, and hardware destroying payloads for the ones that have no reputation to smear.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
That's what I thought, too, when I just read the headline. But on reading the article, it becomes clear that they're just insufficiently curating the files they're distributing. What should happen if some corrupt official's email contains a malware attachment? There is some value in not curating the data - it would be good to know if they responded to a social engineering attack, for example. Perhaps a payload reveals that some other government got into their email years ago, and has been blackmailing them? Similarly, it would be informative to find that someone was using email to share pornography of themselves, especially if that pornography was blackmail material, but there ought to be some curation.
- ddt_Osprey 10y ago
  Oh, clickbait. Nevermind. I suppose maybe this identifies the polarity of backchannel.com's political alignment.

ungzd 10y ago

"Spam" folder in my Gmail account contains lots of malware too. It means Google is evil and gmail is designed to spread malware.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Clearly Google is not evil for having malware in your spam folder. But it would be unethical to post the contents of your email account, expecting people to download and inspect the email in a context where they could be infected by the malware in your spam folder, without at least a warning that it contained viruses. I think the best resolution would be to post the contents of non-spam mailbox folders with a warning that some attachments may contain viruses, or scrub attachments. Post the spam folder and suspicious attachments separately, most people aren't interested in that part of the email archive. This would save bandwidth and prevent users from becoming infected. The small risk that something important in the spam folder is missed is outweighed by these benefits, IMO.
meira 10y ago
I agree that Google fits the description, but not Wikileaks :P

siegecraft 10y ago

I see this cites the 'Turkish women were exposed' meme, rebuttal here (https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-against-wikileaks-looks-like/ https://glomardisclosure.com/2016/08/08/what-a-hit-piece-aga...) but really all you had to do was see Conde Nast at the top and you could predict the tenor of the piece..