More than 40,000 websites have fallen victim to a virus attack
that is still growing, security experts have said.
Security firm
Websense says the site beladen.net is infecting legitimate
websites all over the world with malicious code that then tries to
install malware on the computers of people visiting them.
The Beladen virus is still active, with the number of affected
sites growing from 20,000 to over 40,000 since Friday.
Carl Leonard, security research manager for EMEA at Websense,
said the Beladen virus poses a "pretty serious" threat to
users.
"We are trying to look into how these sites are compromised in
the first place," he said. Anti-virus detection capability is also
not that high, with 13 out of 40 systems tested by Websense failing
to detect the malware.
The malware could be stealing data, but it is not yet clear what
it does to computers. It is also targeting a wide range of websites
with a multiple types of content. "Any user in any country could
potentially stumble upon an infected site," said Leonard. "Users
need solutions that they know will protect them against this."
The attack is similar to the
Gumblar virus, but is separate and distinct. It is also similar
to attacks from the Russian Business Network, Websense says.