An Arsenal fan site has been compromised to serve up sophisticated malware. Malicious code smuggled onto Onlinegooner.com redirected users to sites in Asia and Russia that download a wide variety of nasties onto vulnerable Windows PCs.

The downloaded malware contains a potent cocktail of rootkit, keylogging, backdoor, ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) poisoning, and DNS (Domain name system) spoofing capabilities.

It's unclear if Onlinegooner.com has cleaned up the infection at the time of writing. We've dropped an email to the site's webmaster and will update this story once we get a reply.

Attacks targeting sports fans are uncommon but not unprecedented.

New York Jets gridiron fans were targeted in a similar attack back in January, Trend Micro notes. The presence of malicious code, often served up via tainted ads from third parties, on legitimate sites has become a greater problem over recent months.

For example, malware-laced ads were appearing on ITV.com and Radio Times earlier this month before both sites were cleaned up. Rogue ads infiltrated Expedia and Rhapsody in a separate attack in late January. ®

Related stories

• Updated Digital Spy struggles to pin down tainted ad infection (2 June 2009)
• Malware writers think global, act local (22 February 2008)
• Updated again Scareware package planted in ITV.com ads (21 February 2008)
• Web browsers on the front line of exploitation (15 February 2008)
• Rogue ads infiltrate Expedia and Rhapsody (30 January 2008)
• Beware of pickpockets and malware-laced banner ads (4 January 2008)
• Sat nav fingered in shock Arsenal defeat (11 December 2007)
• Updated DoubleClick caught supplying malware-tainted ads (13 November 2007)
• Thousands snared by malware warning from big-name websites (7 November 2007)
• Downed blogger Murray vows to continue Usmanov attacks (25 September 2007)
• Yahoo feeds Trojan-laced ads to MySpace and PhotoBucket users (11 September 2007)