In an era where online security is paramount, the administrators of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) website have had to learn this lesson the hard way. Reddit users have discovered that the UK’s National Health Service website, used by millions of people, is redirecting its users to malware-infected websites. More than 800 NHS pages, which are linked to an infected domain, are allowing malware to spread through an official government portal.
An NHS spokesperson said the unprovoked incident was not caused by hackers, but rather a coding error. “A routine security check of the website alerted us to this issue on Monday morning. We have now identified the issue and will fix the code.”
The problem is said to have stemmed from a simple typo, when a programmer mistyped the letters that make up a Google API domain. When someone discovered the error, they bought the “misspelled” domain, loaded it with malware , and started distributing it. (They typed “translate.googleaspis.com” instead of “translate.googleapis.com.”)
The NHS added that once the problem is resolved, it will put in place a monitoring system to ensure it does not happen again.
