Tor Is Vulnerable to Malware and Government Surveillance

The Tor network is often hailed as a fantastic tool for protecting the privacy of Internet users. Many are working to build simple anonymity products for the mass market based on Tor. However, the network is not as bulletproof as it may seem, and with more companies tying into it, there will surely be further attempts to crack Tor.

Josh Pitts, an IT specialist at Leviathan Security Group, found a rather serious problem recently. While using Tor, Windows updates were being replaced with malware: “By using a wrapper for the original binary, the malware authors do not invoke the NSIS error and bypass simple self-checking mechanisms,” Pitts wrote.

Because the malware was wrapped inside Windows files, the files either bypassed system update checks or gave users an error code, which led to users installing an unauthorized patch.