Chinese attack Parliament using Windows security hole

Chinese hackers launched a major attack on the UK Parliament earlier this month, the government’s email filtering company MessageLabs has confirmed. The attack, which occurred on 2 January, attempted to exploit the Windows Meta File (WMF) vulnerability to hijack the PCs of more than 70 named individuals, including researchers, secretaries and MPs themselves. Emails were sent to staff, with an attachment that contained the WMF-exploiting Setabortproc Trojan. Anyone opening this attachment would have enabled attackers to browse files, and possibly install a keylogging program to attempt the theft of passwords. None of the emails got through to the intended targets, MessageLabs said, but the UK authorities were alerted.

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