Posted on 03/16/2016 9:29:48 AM PDT by rarestia
A number of high-profile and very high-traffic websites such as The New York Times (NYT), BBC, AOL, MSN, the NFL and more have all been serving up malicious adverts to unsuspecting users that ultimately results in files being held to ransom by the malware, according to Malwarebytes.
Malicious ads making their way onto websites via ad networks used to be a far more common occurence but most ad networks from company’s like Google have gotten far better at rooting out the bad from the good.
“Out of the blue on the weekend, we witnessed a huge spike in malicious activity emanating out of two suspicious domains. Not only were there a lot of events, but they also included some very high profile publishers, which is something we haven’t seen in a while,” the company said.
It looks like the ads weren’t restricted to coming via Google’s ad network either – AOL, AppNexus and Rubicon’s networks were also named in the report.
Once a user has been infected, they’re then redirected to a page hosting the malware exploit kits, which ultimately lead to your files being held ransom in exchange for a payment – often requested via bitcoin due to its relative anonymity. In this attack, Malwarebytes says that the Angler exploit kit is used in many instances.
The news won’t help publishers win any favors in the adblocking debate, however. Not only are ads considered to be essentially spam by many people, they’re also now (once again) compromising the security of users.
If you are not using Adblocking software, now's the time to start!
There's an article published by ArsTechnica out there I encourage every tech person to read. We can't post Ars here.
I’ve gone all the way to default script-blocking.
URGENT PING!
Online spam compromises your privacy, wastes bandwidth and just slows your PC to a crawl.
This is exceptionally bad, because these are ads on popular websites that people might whitelist.
I guess that depends upon your definition of "help". If it moves the discussion in a positive direction, I certainly think you could call that helpful.
You can still surf popular sites, you just won’t see a ton of ads.
Only site I have the blocker disabled by default is Hulu, so I can stream movies and TV shows.
I used ad block for years and upgraded to Ad Block Plus last fall.
Ghostery was added, when I went to Ad Block plus.
With my 10 Win Laptop, I use Norton safe search plus the above with any site visited.
With my Acer Chrome Book, I use Norton safe search when I go to links that are not normally used.
This was the only article I could find that was usable on FR. Many in the industry are grousing about AdBlock’s very effective software, and now with this, I doubt you’ll get much sympathy from users. It’s one thing to pick up a virus or malware on a porn site or while doing something immoral or illegal, but this was served up from common sites. This is worse than the article lets on.
Anyone use their iPad or iPhone as their primary device? I am using chrome and my ad blocker will work on my MacBook but it won’t work on the phone or iPad.
Most sites are just cluttered with pop ups. I am so thankful that FR remains ad free since day 1.
I’m running this:
https://www.foolishit.com/cryptoprevent-malware-prevention/
CryptoPrevent is an Anti-Virus/Security Software Supplement, originally designed to prevent infection from the CryptoLocker threat which emerged in late 2013. Since that time, CryptoPrevent has grown into a robust solution, providing protection against a wide range of ransomware and other malware.
PLUS:
Adblocker Plus & NoScript [ https://noscript.net/ ]
AdBlock was purchased by a “mystery company” and apparently is allowing people to buy their way onto the white list now.
Semi-true. They’re using targeted advertising, and the requirements to be put on that list are very strict (e.g. no popups/popovers, must be smaller than a certain size, no audio, etc.). Users of AdBlock can turn off the option to receive targeted advertising.
Thank you for the information.
If they are Obama supporters, which is likely, they would like that.
Note: I'm not singling out those criminals. I'd like to lock up a substantial fraction of criminals forever, in the least expensive prisons imaginable. Imagine how safe decent people would be with the predators removed instead of democrats protecting the predators among us.
NoScript
Yep. Its kind of extreme but I use the net mostly for research and have to do something to quash distractions.
if you are not using linux for web browsing, now is the time
Yeah, okay. /snark
Your comment is really not helpful. Linux represents less than 3% of Internet users. Besides, Ransomware is technically platform agnostic. If an uninformed Linux user went through the proper motions, it could infect them as well.
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