Forum Thread: Google Images Security Flaw

Firstly, I'm very new here but very excited to be a member of this community. As for my question, a few months ago my girlfriend got the ThinkPoint virus from what I assume, was Google Images. The virus itself wasn't difficult to remove but I was wondering if someone could explain this security flaw in Images to me.

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I doubt that you got anything from simply viewing the images, but what I'm willing to be happened is that one of the websites you pulled an image from was a malicious website. The website likely had some code on it that exploited a vulnerability in the browser, which allows the website to install a program on your machine without notification. What you can do to protect yourself, is update to the latest version of Firefox, or Google Chrome, and make sure your operating system's updates are current as well. Try a plugin for Firefox called "NoScript" it will filter out JavaScript, which was definitely needed to download the software to your computer without you knowing. I hope I helped!

Well, I'll try to answer you, though I think Alex Long can explain it better than I. First, read the recent Null Byte article by Alex Long about "Hacking Your Friend's Facebook Password". He shows how very easy it is to spoof a website (ie, create an exact replica of a legitimate site and inject a malicious script into it). This is what was done with some Google images. A hacker copied a legitimate image and injected a malicious script into it. When a person clicked on that infected image, the script launched and re-directed the person to buy Thinkpoint which was a fake anti-virus program. Then the person couldn't get out of the Thinkpoint trap unless they removed the malicious script from their computer.

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