Cryptome.org hacked, serving client-side exploits

The popular whistle-blowing web site Cryptome.org, was recently hacked, and a malicious script was embedded on it pointing to a BlackHole web malware exploitation kit.

The BlackHole Web malware exploitation kit was serving client-side vulnerabilities from hxxp://65.75.137.243/Home/index.php with the IP currently offline.

Apparently, the attack was configured to only exploit users running Microsoft's Internet Explorer, compared to a situation where the cybercriminals could have utilized BlackHole's true multi-browser exploitation potential, and target multiple browsers.

According to Cryptome.org's most recent note:

14 February 2012. 16:30GMT: Cryptome 100% restored with clean files. The Blackhole malware was removed on 12 February 2012. Apparently, according to the malware, only users of MS IE were targeted, bad enough.

Users are advised to ensure that they're not running vulnerable third-party applications, and browser plugins.