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Online Ads Are More Dangerous Than Porn, Cisco Says
wiredmikey writes "The popular belief is that security risks increase as the user engages in riskier and shadier behavior online, but that apparently isn't the case, Cisco found in its 2013 Annual Security report. It can be more dangerous to click on an online advertisement than an adult content site these days, according to Cisco. For example, users clicking on online ads were 182 times more likely to wind up getting infected with malware than if they'd surfed over to an adult content site, Cisco said. The highest concentration of online security targets do not target pornography, pharmaceutical, or gambling sites as much as they affect legitimate sites such as search engines, online retailers, and social media. Users are 21 times more likely to get hit with malware from online shopping sites and 27 more times likely with a search engine than if they'd gone to a counterfeit software site, according to Cisco's report (PDF). There is an overwhelming perception that people get compromised for 'going to dumb sites,' Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at Cisco, told SecurityWeek."
The summary, and the Security Week article, write that "Users are more 21 times more likely to get hit with malware from online shopping sites than if they'd gone to a counterfeit software site".
Cisco's report says that "Online shopping sites are 21 times more likely to deliver malicious content than counterfeit software sites."
Those statements are not equivalent. Online shopping sites have many more visitors than counterfeit software sites, so they have more opportunity to deliver malware. The same goes for the factor of 27 for search engines.
Also, it's hard to check the factor of 182 for adult sites, since the report doesn't include that number, or in fact even the words "porn" or "adult".
You would actually become safer.
What Cisco's report actually said is that behaviour often perceived as "safe" (such as online shopping) carries more risk than generally thought.
They meant risqué vs risky?
It has been known for a long time that ads are a primary malware vector, this is the reason many sane people block them.
Well thats what I heard...from a friend...he doesn't have that many accounts...
I've noticed similar shadyness with Google ads and just about all "sponsored content" you see on websites. You see the bullshit tags like "Doctors angered at woman's self treatment" or links to sites that seem to do nothing more than try to scare you to invest. The internet is full of bullshit. Somehow, for some reason Google is one of the richest companies in the world because of it. I'd like to know, who actually clicks on this shit.
Let's get rid of online ads then.
It is long known that ads may contain malicious parts - especially bits of javascript. It happened before that major ad servers got compromised, it will happen again. I recall reports that some ads were trying to infect an unsuspecting user directly, and such ads are displayed on sites all over the place, including personal blogs and lolcat sites.
When clicking an ad you don't really know which site you're going to be sent to. When visiting a porn or a warez site, you normally go there intentionally. Those sites are considered risky (especially the free ones - that use free porn/software to attract visitors - and somehow still have a desire to generate income), so many visitors will be more vigilant and may take extra precautions even.
And ads will likely have a greater reach. I think it's safe to assume that many more people visit general sites with ads, than visit porn/warez sites. Greater chance to find a vulnerable system. More chance for someone to (accidentally) click the ad, and have them redirected to a malware site.
The only somewhat surprising part is where online shopping sites are named as a major source of infection. Those sites have a reputation to keep up, or they will lose business. And as they are shopping sites, their income comes from direct sales, so there is no need to display third-party ads for revenue.
next week cisco unveils a new enterprise-caliber ad-scrubbing internet gateway...
This was always my response to the 'it is immoral to block ads' argument. I always said that if blah.com is hosting the ads itself I would be willing to allow them but as long as the content is from some unknown domain that I haven't chosen to trust, forget about it.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Seriously, what year is this? If websites can still drop an executable onto a users machine with nothing more than a drive-by then clearly the problem is much more than just a question of ads of no ads. Why do operating systems and browsers still suck?
Because Microsoft hasn't finished committing suicide yet. When IE finally approaches 0% then the suckage will start to lift.
Oh before you bitch about Microsoft bashing, they just killed off Direct X. Ballmer is driving it into the ground faster than an exploding 787 battery.
I consider "Adblock" and similar browser and computer add-ons to be *security* tools as much as bandwidth and other management.
Since the first time I noted browser exploits coming across common news and sales sites, I realized that the current model requires not trust of the sites we visit, but of the advertiser's sites... you know, like google and double-click and the others. I don't want to trust "unknowns" and so I block them unless I need them unblocked for access.
Actual context sensitive Google ads that I was too terrified to click on:
"Ball lightning: Browse a huge selection now. Find exactly what you want today."
"Ann Coulter Ringtone! Send this ringtone to your phone right now!"
Made me toss my browser cookies it did. After you toss your cookies these things stop for awhile, then build once again to a crescendo. Lately I have been getting ads with garden gnomes leering suggestively.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
You hit the nail on the head. We should do everything we can to avoid anal dissection.
Please stop with the long, self-advertising posts. There's no doubt you are amazing and should start your own blog.
Isn't this an advert for some cisco snakeoil?
Would the risks cancel each other out?
Gently reply
If your responses weren't canned and also formatted in such a way that you believe your target audience is capable of no thought then you might not get modded down so much.
Really your comments look like something an adman on bath salts would come up with, you are two bolded sentences away from being the Time Cube guy.
Relax, just provide a place for people to start, or if you want to provide more information a single link to a guide will suffice. Oh, and you really should just go back to using an actual account instead of AC.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Mod parent +1:???
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Giving people information is not a contest to see who can cram the most information down someones throat in the least friendly way.
It might be possible that there may be some useful information in your posts, but I would never know because you have to be a bit insane to be able to put up with how you present said information.
Think about how much information I just gave you in two little sentences, then look at your posts and try to distill that information into the shortest amount of words you can and I am sure your posts would only amount to around 2 well thought out paragraphs with perhaps 3 links total.
Mainly since I don't see you disprove my points validly on custom hosts files value over DNS, AdBlock & Ghostery - period!
There was no attempt to disprove the information in your posts. You made a post complaining about being down modded, I attempted to give you information that would help you not get down modded. Granted, I could have used more tact, but there was no attempt to disprove what you wrote.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
So. watching porn all year is just as dangerous as clicking two ads.
Privacy is terrorism.
Considering you did not reference my post at all in your "rebuttal", why did you even bother replying?
I'm trying to interact with you in the hopes of finding out if there is an actual human being on the other end, and if there is one, perhaps help that person.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Have fun celebrating your victory.
You have slayed the mighty troll.
The troll that replied to you when you asked why you were down modded.
The troll that honestly tried to give you advice.
btw, I did look over your short list of non hostfile +5 moderated posts and they were not your usual copy/paste-athons with a ton of bolded lines and links to other posts. Your +5 moderated non-host file posts were more ontopic than most of your posts and more human.
But yes, I am a troll, I am not trying to help, you have won, enjoy yourself.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Considering how often this troll has posted that in this article alone (let alone the million other places) I don't see him changing any time soon. Of course using a hosts file is a better solution for people who have one single computer that connects to all sorts of networks. But for my particular situation it is just not ideal, and the DNS server offers a whole bunch of advantages, and almost no disadvantages.
For me, I administer one list on the DNS server, and it covers all my family's computers, all our cell phones, tablets, and any other internet connected devices. As I'm running the server for other things anyway it costs me nothing.
Although I do have to do some small amount of administration myself, it beats trusting any other application to do it, especially one spamvertised on some random internet site...
'Users are 21 times more likely to get hit with malware from online shopping sites and 27 more times likely with a search engine than [if they weren't using Windows] ..
AccountKiller
wow.... and the troll just will not give up... completely ignores everything I said, and wants to force his inferior system on the world. too bad the troll is too cowardly to log in.
You are the one who started this off-topic discussion about what you consider unfair down mods. I am staying on the topic of discussion you started, you are the one going off-topic. =P
Fine, what do you think of the hostfile modifications that Spybot does? Is their list comprehensive enough?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.