Malware impacts e-commerce pages

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 - 11:08 by Simon Crisp

In recent weeks the spread of a new strain of malware has caused concern amongst many experts as it has been targeted at millions of e-commerce sites and could compromise consumers' ability to enjoy safe shopping online without risking their personal details.

A spokesperson for web security firm Armorize explained that over six million pages are now infected and that the attack has escalated to prominence in the last 14 days.

What is most worrying is that experts believe the malware is exploiting a security loophole that most had thought was closed back in 2010.

While larger e-commerce sites remain unaffected the malware is able to exploit hundreds of thousands of sites operated by small and medium sized firms who use the osCommerce platform, putting a lot of pressure on companies which do not have the funds to keep their software bang up to date.

Back in July the malware was only detected on 90,000 pages across the web but this has ballooned to around 6.3 million in a short period of time. Many legitimate pages have become victim to this code and it is able to infect user PCs and steal information such as passwords from their web browser.

The spread of this malware is obviously a cause for concern, but as long as you stick to using reputable, large sites which have a proven track record for providing safe shopping online you should be fine.

When using smaller sites always ensure that you are protected by the very latest antivirus software and that your browser has been updated to the most recent edition. The malware is able to exploit older versions of Internet Explorer which have not been patched with security fixes so be aware that surfing with older software will always put you at greater risk.