Caution: Webb Space Telescope images used for cyber attack
The first massive image of the distant universe taken by the Webb Space Telescope is now being used by malicious attackers, and it all starts with a seemingly innocent email
Lilian dialect
07/09/2022
Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 2:05 p.m. Updated: 2:09 p.m.
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Image from the "James Webb" telescope (photo: official website, NASA)
The Webb Space Telescope, which began operating a few weeks ago, has already provided some remarkable images of the universe.
But there are already those who use them for less noble purposes - phishing, or a phishing attack, that is, an attempt to extract details from the victim while pretending to be a legitimate website or body.
The attack, which was first identified by the cyber company Scironics and was already reported in several media this week, is based on the "sharpest image of the distant universe", an image taken by Webb and we also wrote about it here - a spectacular image of a cluster of distant galaxies.
The sophisticated attack begins with an email, which includes an attached Word file.
Within the hidden information of the file there is a link that downloads a script and then it downloads a copy of the image in its entirety - but to which additional, malicious code is also attached.
Anti-virus software reportedly failed to detect the malicious code embedded in the image.
James Webb Space Telescope (Photo: AP)
Augusto Barros, Scironix's vice president, told Popular Science that he has several theories as to why the attackers chose to use Webb's spectacular space image.
Besides the popularity of the exciting images themselves, each detailed web image is a huge file, making it easy to hide code in it.
In addition, the choice of the popular file that is still circulating on the net and is registered as a legitimate file, makes it easier for them to escape the detection of anti-virus software.
Another interesting point about this attack is that it uses Golang, Google's open source programming language.
According to Skyronix, the use of this language for writing viruses and malware is on the rise, mainly because of the wide support for different platforms, and because it is more difficult to reverse engineer the programs written in this language.
As usual, the best way to avoid the current attack, like any phishing attack that comes via email - is not to open attachments that come from sources you don't recognize or trust.
If you still want to see spectacular images of space taken by the Webb telescope - use the official Webb website directly.
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