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Banner Ad on Myspace Serves Adware to 1 Million

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the have-some-pop-ups dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog reports that a banner ad running on MySpace.com and other Web sites used a Windows security flaw to push adware and spyware out to more than one million computer users this week. The attack leveraged the Windows Metafile (WMF) exploit to install programs in the PurityScan/ClickSpring family of adware, which bombards the user with pop-up ads and tracks their Web usage."

5 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. Excellent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Darwinism works!

  2. Re:First time? by hendridm · · Score: 5, Funny
    Makes me question myspace, you'd think they have people watching for these sorts of attacks.

    Hah, that's like finding a loaded diaper in a garbage dump and then complaining about the level of sanitation.

  3. All your Myspace are belong to us? by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

    "It's called My Space not Your space for a reason."
        -MySpace Vice President In Charge Of Revenue Generation

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  4. Just update by bigtimepie · · Score: 5, Funny
    From the article:
    Microsoft released a patch in January to fix a serious security flaw in the way Windows renders WMF
    What is clear from this attack is that there are plenty of people who still haven't installed this security update from Microsoft.
    If your OS puts out a security fix, it's probably for a reason. This could have been avoided for everyone just by keeping up-to-date.
  5. Re:Prosecute virus creating companies. by Ethan+Allison · · Score: 5, Funny

    People on non-Windows platforms are generally not the targets of ads, as indicated by XP-styled "message box" banners.

    --
    I make websites and stuff. Buy one.