I was reading this article on washington post blog where they say virus writers are now tainting Google Adsense ads.It says "Virus writers are contaminating Google's "sponsored links" , paid ads which are shown alongside search engine results. They are aiming to get their malicious software installed on computers whose users click onto ad links after searching for legitimate sites."
These malicious ads initially would route through an intermediate site. The intermediate site attempts to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows to silently install software designed to steal passwords and other sensitive information from your PC. The attackers exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, a problem that the company issued a patch to fix last June. [ That's why windows recommend to keep your automatic updates on .]
Its not just windows fault.Some people say its because of some odd feature in Google ads also. Normally, when a viewer hovers over a hyperlink, the name of the site that the computer user is about to access appears in the bottom left corner of the browser window. But hovering over Google's sponsored links shows nothing in that area. That blank space potentially gives bad guys another way to hide where visitors will be taken first.
But Exploit Labs's Roger Thompson says that Google has taken down these offending links.This type of ad based spyware is not in news for first time.Last summer,more than a million Windows users had been infected with spyware due to a malicious banner advertisement shown for several days on high-traffic sites like MySpace.com and Webshots.com.
These malicious ads initially would route through an intermediate site. The intermediate site attempts to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows to silently install software designed to steal passwords and other sensitive information from your PC. The attackers exploited a flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, a problem that the company issued a patch to fix last June. [ That's why windows recommend to keep your automatic updates on .]
Its not just windows fault.Some people say its because of some odd feature in Google ads also. Normally, when a viewer hovers over a hyperlink, the name of the site that the computer user is about to access appears in the bottom left corner of the browser window. But hovering over Google's sponsored links shows nothing in that area. That blank space potentially gives bad guys another way to hide where visitors will be taken first.
But Exploit Labs's Roger Thompson says that Google has taken down these offending links.This type of ad based spyware is not in news for first time.Last summer,more than a million Windows users had been infected with spyware due to a malicious banner advertisement shown for several days on high-traffic sites like MySpace.com and Webshots.com.
1 comments:
Interesting post... But I do see the address at the left corner when I hoover a Google ad. It depends on the computer. I did it the same on another computer and I saw no address there...
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