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Hackers Use Banner Ads on Major Sites to Hijack Your PC

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-knew-advertising-was-bad-for-us dept.

The worst-case scenario used to be that online ads are pesky, memory-draining distractions. But a new batch of banner ads is much more sinister: They hijack personal computers and bully users until they agree to buy antivirus software. And the ads do their dirty work even if you don't click on them.The malware-spiked ads have been spotted on various legitimate websites, ranging from the British magazine The Economist to baseball's MLB.com to the Canada.com news portal. Hackers are using deceptive practices and tricky Flash programming to get their ads onto legitimate sites by way of DoubleClick's DART program. Web publishers use the DoubleClick-hosted platform to manage advertising inventory." CT: Link updated to original source instead of plagerizer.

3 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. oh great by deftones_325 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now I need to buy penis-enlargment pills AND and anti-virus.

    --
    "A gentleman never strikes a lady with his hat on." - Fred Allen
    1. Re:oh great by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, those two things often go together.

      --
      It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
  2. Re:Never Experienced This by doombringerltx · · Score: 5, Funny

    3) How did YouTube decide that "ridiculously hot LATINA girl dancing, not asian!" is a Related Video? Except in the sense that it's always relevant, I mean. Finally a reason to RTFA