The Next Ad You Click May Be a Virus

Jay notes a Wall Street Journal report about ad networks unintentionally selling empty space to malware loaders (the link is to a syndicating site that doesn't require a subscription to view). The submitter comments: "The labeling of the fake ad sellers as hackers is pretty bogus; there's no hacking involved. Simply sign up for one of these networks, create your fake site, put up another company's creative, and you're good to go." The incidents being reported go back a few months, but the pattern of this criminal activity seems to be coming clear only recently."EWeek.com, a technology news site owned by Ziff Davis Enterprise, in February displayed an ad on its homepage masquerading as a promotion for LaCoste, the shirt maker. The retailer hadn't placed the ad — a hacker had, to direct users to a Web site where harmful programs would be downloaded to their computers, says Stephen Wellman, director of community and content for Ziff Davis."

So lucky me...

[koolfy]

...having that "Disable Advertising" checkbox from Slashdot :)

"As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising. "
Thank you for preventing my Gentoo Linux system for being infec...

Oh, wait...

Re:Aren't they all?

[dean.collins]

As a content provider (I'm the founder of http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ [livebaseballchat.com] stuff like this annoys the hell out of me.

I mean we go to all the effort to secure passwords, code tc - then our users are infected with ads they view....

We were sourcing our banner ads from Pubmatic but after a two 'problem ads' about 3 weeks I've cut it back to Google + banners we sell internall direct to end companies.

I dont have any answers but if you have a problem with a website be sure to let the content owners know - they might not even realise they have a problem.

Cheers,
Dean Collins
http://www.livebaseballchat.com/ [livebaseballchat.com]

Very simple asnwer

[Archfeld]

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, I REPEAT NEVER EVER click an ad banner. If you see somthing you REALLY want to view get the source and go there in another browser window, but clicking thru an ad banner is somthing I can't ever remember doing in the entire time I've been on the net...

Re:Creative? Huh?

[nvrrobx]

Your answer, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Creative (noun, in advertising), referring to materials, imagery, or collateral prescriptively produced through creativity and the creative process

This is not specific to banner ads. This term is used in all forms of advertising.

Re:what ads?

[mrbcs]

This is my favourite piece of sanity: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm [mvps.org] One hosts file, one reboot, no more problems anywhere. Shit google ads don't even work. They may show up, but you can't click em. I just got tired of waiting for shit ads to load. I never clicked em, so I'm actually saving the sites money by not having to serve me an ad I'll never click. This also stops tons of phishing sites and other malware. I can even use ie and opera and don't see ads.

Re:When will this end?

[jonbryce]

Windows has a lot less than 90% of the server market, yet it is still the platform virus writers target most.