Security News Wikileaks hosts hundreds of malware files in email dumps

[Venustus]

Wikileaks is reportedly hosting over 300 malware samples among the website's cache of leaked emails.

As reported by The Register, Bulgarian security researcher Dr Vesselin Bontchev claims that the malware, of which there are at least 300 files hosted, has been found within the recent email dump of communication from the Turkish party AKP.

The cache is a raw dump and Bontchev notes that there does not seem to have been any "processing of any kind" -- such as a simple malware and virus scan. As a result, the results of little more than a quick check has revealed the security risk that users of Wikileaks perusing the files now face.

"Since many of the AKP members have been recipients of malware sent by e-mail (most likely random spam but could have also been targeted attacks), the received malware in the emails is also present in the dump," the researcher says.

Further reading from source
and
wlscrape/malware.md at master · bontchev/wlscrape · GitHub

 

[Myriad]

Wikileaks is reportedly hosting over 300 malware samples among the website's cache of leaked emails.

As reported by The Register, Bulgarian security researcher Dr Vesselin Bontchev claims that the malware, of which there are at least 300 files hosted, has been found within the recent email dump of communication from the Turkish party AKP.

The cache is a raw dump and Bontchev notes that there does not seem to have been any "processing of any kind" -- such as a simple malware and virus scan. As a result, the results of little more than a quick check has revealed the security risk that users of Wikileaks perusing the files now face.

"Since many of the AKP members have been recipients of malware sent by e-mail (most likely random spam but could have also been targeted attacks), the received malware in the emails is also present in the dump," the researcher says.

Further reading from source
and
wlscrape/malware.md at master · bontchev/wlscrape · GitHub

That is fascinating .... thanks for posting it !

I've spent some time reading around on this today , but I cannot see any reports of people visiting the site getting infected ( yet ! )
But it's bad form on the part of the site's admin to have failed to post a warning , or to have even noticed the situation !

As stated in The Register report :-
".... offers no warning about the security implications of downloading macro-enabled documents, executables, and other potentially malicious files."

I have a feeling that many people who may have visited the Wikileaks site in the past , just for their general interest ,
may be put off these days because of widespread reports that their ISP logs all sites visited .

And they fear that they may be tagged as "subversive " or "radical " simply because of their online behavior .
It has already happened with Tor users !!
And I find it all a little depressing ....