Child Abuse Sites on Tor Attacked by Malware Allegedly Designed by FBI

Freedom Hosting which is used by a number of sites to deliver materials, have had codes in their pages, which could be used to disclose identities of visitors.It delivers through Tor, a network designed to keep anonymity. However, the latest malware attack suggests that it no longer offers a safe option.

Chief technology officer at security advisors Charteris Allan Woodward said in an interview with BBC, "This challenges the assumption people have made that Tor is a simple way of maintaining your anonymity online. The bottom line is that is not guaranteed even if you think you are taking the right steps to hide your identity. This is the first time we've seen somebody looking to unmask people rather than just security researchers discussing the possibility."

Woodward also mentioned in the same interview that the design of the code suggest that the source of the malware is a U.S law enforcement agency. However, he did not fully disclose the name of the agency. The IBTimes reported that the hacker was the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation.

An administrator of the Tor Project confirmed the report on its blog saying, "The current news indicates that someone has exploited the software behind Freedom Hosting. From what is known so far, the breach was used to configure the server in a way that it injects some sort of Javascript exploit in the web pages delivered to users. This exploit is used to load a malware payload to infect users' computers."

Anonymous hacktivist collective recently targeted Freedom Hosting by temporary forcing it offline in 2011 after asserting it was the biggest host of child abuse material on Tor.

Reports from Daily Dot News said that pedophiles still use the hosting service non-stop and offers caveat to each other about the breach since the news surfaced.

The terms and conditions of Freedom Hosting had stated that illegal activities were not permitted on the sites it supported, but added that it was "not responsible" for its users' actions.

"The person, or persons, who run Freedom Hosting are in no way affiliated or connected to The Tor Project," Tor developers have stressed.