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Google's Doubleclick Ad Servers Exposed Millions of Computers To Malware

Posted by timothy on from the but-zedo-is-awesome dept.

wabrandsma (2551008) writes with this excerpt from The Verge: Last night, researchers at Malwarebytes noticed strange behavior on sites like Last.fm, The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post. Ads on the sites were being unusually aggressive, setting off anti-virus warnings and raising flags in a number of Malwarebytes systems. After some digging, researcher Jerome Segura realized the problem was coming from Google's DoubleClick ad servers and the popular Zedo ad agency. Together, they were serving up malicious ads designed to spread the recently identified Zemot malware. A Google representative has confirmed the breach, saying "our team is aware of this and has taken steps to shut this down."

7 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. And they wonder why I block ads... by Derekloffin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is stuff like this that just demonstrates how annoying the internet ad delivery mechanisms are. Not only are they intrusive, bandwidth wasting, and often impairing my user experience, they can also spread malware.

    1. Re:And they wonder why I block ads... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed.

      My hosts file (across my Windows, Linux, and OSX) machines have been using the excellent MSVP hosts (http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm) for years.

      Plus, it speeds up internet browsing instead of having the browser ping 10+ different domains.

    2. Re:And they wonder why I block ads... by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wastes bandwidth, chews up CPU, blasts noise at you and with 57 tabs open it is hard to tell from where, starts videos, does crappy things if you accidentally hover the mouse over the window.

      And spread malware.

      I use AdBlock Plus, of course. With Flashblock carrying the other half of the burden.

      I am happy these jerks almost exclusively use Flash, HTML5 scares the shit out of me.

      --
      Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
  2. And there's the reason why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I use Adblockers / flashblocker and NoScript.

    And I utterly will not reconsider for any reason.

    1. Re:And there's the reason why... by reikae · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't think of any website I wanted to visit this year but couldn't due to adblocking. I doubt it's necessary to reconsider any time soon. Even then, I'll first look into alternative websites.

    2. Re:And there's the reason why... by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wrong.

      Right now, there are a few sites (majorgeeks) that ask you to please allow ads because that's what pays for the site and others simply refuse entry.

      You will reconsider when sites tell you to disable all ad blockers and hosts files that block ad sites or you will not be able to view the content.

      Wrong. The only thing I'll reconsider is visiting those sites.

  3. Just say block by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DoublcClick has such negative value that their servers should be blocked at firewalls, or at least "host.txt". Even if you have AdBlock, blocking them earlier saves bandwidth.