The website of controversial TV nutritionist Gillian McKeith has been compromised by hackers, who are using it as a staging post in their spam activities.
Gillian McKeith, who stopped calling herself "Doctor" after complaints that viewers of her colonic-loving TV shows might mistakenly believe she was medically qualified, is perhaps a surprising promoter of spam.
And yet, our spam traps have intercepted hundreds of spam messages pointing to the controversial eating guru's website.
Here's an example of just one of the spam emails that we have seen:
A look through our spam traps finds that spam has been sent linking to Gillian McKeith's website since 16 July. We imagine that is when the self-hosted WordPress part of her website was compromised by the hackers.
My guess is that McKeith's team has not been keeping their WordPress installation up-to-date to protect against vulnerabilities, have chosen easy-to-crack passwords, or are using a vulnerable plugin that the spammers were able to exploit.
Regardless of how the hack occurred, users who click on the spammed out links to Gillian McKeith's site end up instead on a Russian-hosted website promoting herbal Viagra.
Sophos has spoken to the webmasters of www.gillianmckeith.info and informed them of the security problem.
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Gillian McKeith image credit: Wikipedia
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Did you lay out all off the Spam on a table and try to shock them with it before asking for a sample of her poo?
She's not a dietician, she's a nutritionist. There's a big difference.
My booboo. I will fix. Thanks
Gijiam mackeith no false teeth . Gazing at other peoples poo . What can she she do . Hacked off by hackers . Trying to flog herbal pills . Not good as they could make you ill .
Congratulations, you are hereby appointed Naked Security's resident rapper.
The Spam Doctor is in! Another colonic success, sophos. Do tell us if we need to be on the lookout for particular WP plugins, though, i manage a few self-hosted WP blogs myself that could do without viagra spam...
usual bad spelling means only one thing only...SPAM the keyword filter needs to be improved to block ALL spam thats what I think
Slightly O/T but she's not exactly a picture of health is she? I think I'll stick to my own diet. Doughnut anyone?