Slashdot Mirror
Virus Writers Target Google's Sponsored Links
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the bad guys are gaming Google's sponsored links to spread their junk to people who click on the ads with unpatched versions of Internet Explorer. Attackers apparently bought the rights to several high profile search terms, including searches that would return results for the Better Business Bureau, among others. The story notes this was bound to happen, given the way Google structures sponsored links: "The bad guys behind the attack appeared to capitalize on an odd feature of Google's sponsored links. 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.""
Maybe you shouldn't post a URL with a ton of encoded material. As far as we can tell it could contain your name, your credit-card number, your SSN, your mother maiden name, and say that you've looked at animal porn yesterday.
Holy jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!
No offense but if right clicking and copying and pasting a link location is +5 informative, then this must be a phishing site. Where did the real slashdot go?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
They should send a SWAT team to bust down the door of a guy who steals identities for a living. No POSSIBLE downside there.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
On the stupidity scale, using unpatched IE is only slightly above using IE at all.
How we know is more important than what we know.