Hanoi (ip-192.com): A new malware attack in Vietnam was discovered by Google. Critics of a controversial bauxite mining project backed by China have been the target of the attack, several newspapers report. Malicious software 
was used to infect potentially tens of thousands computers around the world, mainly owned or operated by Vietnamese speaking people.
"These infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent," said Neel Mehta on Google's Online Security Blog. "Specifically, these attacks have tried to squelch opposition to bauxite mining efforts in Vietnam, an important and emotionally charged issue in the country."
The malicious software pretended that it is needed to allow the Windows operating system to support the Vietnamese language. One of the first websites compromised was the site of the Vietnamese Professionals Society (VPS), according to a report on the McAfee Security Insights Blog. A legitimate keyboard driver needed to insert accents at the appropriate locations was replaced with a Trojan horse.
"We suspect the effort to create the botnet started in late 2009, coinciding by chance with the Operation Aurora attacks," said George Kurtz on the McAfee blog. "While McAfee Labs identified the malware during our investigation into Operation Aurora, we believe the attacks are not related."
The malicious code used in the attacks could monitor activity on the compromised systems. Google said that the attacks in Vietnam were not as sophisticated as the attacks in China, but were also intended to block free speech and opposing views.
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