Council of Ministers’ site infects viewers with viruses

The Web page of the state-run newspaper “Respublika”, an organ of the Council of Ministers of Belarus www.respublika.info, infects all viewers with a virus Trojan-Downloader.JS.Agent.kd. Problems arise right after articles of the newspaper are opened.

Trojan programs of this kind are intended for downloading and installing new versions of malware programs to a target computer. When run, they unload hidden programs, spreading other malware and performing other actions without the user’s knowledge.

Experts believe that this virus could have infected the web page of “Respublika” by its administrator. “A person, who updates the site, must be not checking the computer for viruses. A virus at the administrators’ computer steals passwords from the site, and later somebody is uploading to the site the code causing viruses. Viewers of the web page should protect themselves. They should install anti-virus software, or not to visit the site until the virus exists there,” a programmer Egor Kunovsky said to the Charter’97 press-center.

Visitors of the web page, who have been affected by the viruses, are aggravated. “Today I have visited the site and got infected immediately. The “Respublika” newspaper is not only unjustly and harshly commenting the situation with small businessmen, not only publishing arguable, unsavoury articles disregarding a wide range of opinions, what is more, all its articles infect your computer with viruses. This is the last stage of development of the official on-line journalism: to lie and infect,” an on-line journalist Pavel A. told to he Charter’97 press-center.

On-line supplements of the “Respublika” (“Respublika delovaya” and “Vestnik po nalogam i sboram”) also infect visitors’ computers with viruses as well.