Firefox Clipboard Hack Attack

By Digital Trends Staff August 18, 2008

In a way, you have to admire scammers – they can be so damn inventive. The latest incident of hacking seems to show a remarkable degree of inventiveness, anyway.

It hits both Windows and Mac users of the Firefox browser, according to the BBC. When you copy some information, the attack inserts a hard-to-delete link. Follow it and you find yourself at a site selling fake security software.

How does it work? It manages to exploit Adobe Flash files so they constantly flush other text from the clipboard and insert the link. Those who’ve been infected, writing in forums, have found that either stopping the Firefox process or rebooting have proved the only solutions to the problem.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security firm F-Secure, said:

"It’s an interesting attack, but doesn’t seem to be very widespread at the moment. I don’t remember seeing this before."

"It is a pretty clever technique. Our work would be so much easier if our enemy would be stupid."

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