DoJ Charges Clickjacking Perpetrators

The U.S. Department of Justice is charging seven individuals with 27 counts of wire fraud and other computer-related crimes, accusing the group of hijacking 4 million computers across 100 countries in a sophisticated clickjacking scam.

According to the indictment, the defendants had set up a fake Internet advertising agency, entering into agreements with online ad providers that would pay the group whenever its ads where clicked on by users. The group’s malware, which it had planted on millions of user computers, would redirect the computers’ browsers to its advertisements, thereby generating illicit revenue.

The malware worked by capturing and altering the results of a user’s search engine query. A user would search for a popular site, such as ones for Netflix, the Wall Street Journal, Amazon, Apple iTunes and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Whenever the user would click on the provided link, however, the browser would be redirected to another website, one that the group was paid to generate traffic for.

The malware the group used also blocked antivirus software updates, which left users vulnerable to other attacks as well, according to the DOJ.

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