Jamie Oliver hacked! Recipe hunters exposed to dangerous computer virus
TV chef Jamie Oliver has had his website hacked into by criminals and dangerous malicious code served to visitors.
JamieOliver.com, which has millions of monthly visits, has been affected by a 'malware problem' that has the potential to take control of computers.
First spotted by Malwarebytes, the operators of the site have since been warned of the infection by the security firm and now appears to have been cleared of the malicious code.
Explaining the problem, Malwarebytes revealed in an online statement that the infection was not the result of a malicious ad but rather a carefully and well hidden malicious 'injection' in the site itself.
"While routinely checking the latest exploits and sites hacked, we came across a strange infection pattern that seemed to start from popular website jamieoliver[dot]com (ranked #536 in the UK and bringing in an average of 10 million visits per month), the official site of British chef Jamie Oliver," the statement added.
The security firm concluded that criminals must have hacked the popular site to place the malicious coding there, or exploited the existing code.
If the script was triggered successfully by a visitor of the site, it would direct users to a compromised Wordpress page, and by using more malicious code, would then run an exploit kit which would install malware called Dorkbot, if sufficient vulnerabilities were found.
A spokesman for Jamie Oliver has revealed that only 10 users have reported the issue to the site over the 'low-level malware problem'.
The spokesman told the BBC: "The Jamie Oliver website is regularly checked for vulnerabilities by both our in-house team and an independent third party, and they quickly deal with anything that is found.
"The team is confident that no data has been compromised in this incident, but if anyone is worried do please use the contact form on the site.
"We apologise to anyone who was at all worried after going on the site."
