The popular young singer Alicia Keys and other musicians have not been so lucky in the recent period, as their MySpace web pages got hacked with a seemingly new type of hack. Alicia Keys’ web page and that of several other bands and singers were signaled to contain malicious code by the users of the Exploit Prevention Labs’ LinkScanner tool, which blocks the web pages that contain malicious code. However, this came after the users started reporting that Alicia Keys’ MySpace web page was blocked, as the chief technology officer of LinkScanner.com Roger Thompson said. "When we saw it was MySpace and Alicia Keys, we took a good look at it.” – Roger Thompson also said during an interview.

When somebody views the hacked web pages, an exploit will first attempt to install malware on his or her computer if this one is not properly patched. Then, if this doesn’t work, the user is asked to install a fake codec so that he or she could view a video. However, if both these two attempts fail, the user is still vulnerable if he or she clicks anywhere on the web age that is not a legitimate link and this includes also the ads. "If your mouse slips a bit from what you meant to click, you get the background [link].” – Roger Thompson explained. The link references a web site based in China, co8vd.cn, which also tries to install malicious code.

There are many unknown things about this kind of attack. First of all, there is still not clearly known which flaw the malware was looking to exploit. Then, it is the fact that this kind of “image-background link” hasn’t been seen before.

However, MySpace announced that it had already taken care of the problem. "Individuals who try to phish our members are violating the law and are not welcome on MySpace. We have blocked and removed the source of this phishing attempt and restored the profile.” – one of MySpace’s spokespersons announced. But we shall wait and see what happens next, as Alicia Keys launches a new album on November 13.