Grinch hacks Santa Claus site

The hackers uploaded an iframe that installed malicious software onto visitors' computers.

The "neighborhood watch" organisation had initially flagged the Nevada-resident's site, www.santaslink.net as a site containing malicious content.

Through StopBadware's partnership with Google, vistiors directed to the children's advocate site through the search engine were being warned that they were at risk to enter.

When Claus contacted StopBadware to ask why his site was being filtered, the organisation did a little digging and found that someone had snuck into the site and planted a badware link without Claus' knowledge.

"We noticed right away that nestled all snug in the bottom of his homepage was a nice little bit of code containing a badware link," wrote Jason Callina on the group's blog, "specifically, an iframe that would attempt to install badware onto visitors' computers via a JavaScript exploit."

Claus and his team removed the offending link, but as of late this afternoon, Google was still reporting the site as potentially harmful.

Click here to email West Coast Bureau Chief Ericka Chickowski.

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