EU crime site taken over by bandidos

A SITE WHICH took over the address of an EU-funded, anti-crime project is now pumping out malware.

At www.CTOSE.org instead of getting data on how to investigate crime you get directed to an odd collection of services offering everything from hotel reservations to insurance. Attempting to move around the site throws up virus and Trojan warnings.

Ctose.org (Cyber Tools On-line Search for Evidence), originally part of an attempt to establish an international framework for computer investigations, was set up by the EU in 2003.

The web site now claims it is still offering information on the CTOSE project but instead carries sponsored links, along with lots of stuff in Spanish including a link to Dell.es. When asked to examine it, Sophos said the site looked “spammy” and that there was some dodgy looking java script on it. The pretty young woman college student image used on the home page was commonly used by spamming sites, said Sophos. A sort of Everywhere Girl of malware.

The project was originally launched amid much fanfare in September 2003, promising justice for all by providing a detailed framework and consistent methodologies for conducting computer forensics investigations. Europol, Interpol and the FBI supported the project and were named as potential users with promises that it was going to be exported globally.

But it didn’t really work out that way. One conference later, after getting some money out of Enterprise Scotland, no more cash could be found to keep it running. The project was quietly canned two years later. µ