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US iOS Users Targeted by Massive Malvertising Campaign (zdnet.com)
A cyber-criminal group known as ScamClub has hijacked over 300 million browser sessions over 48 hours to redirect users to adult and gift card scams, a cyber-security firm revealed this week. From a report: The traffic hijacking has taken place via a tactic known as malvertising, which consists of placing malicious code inside online ads. In this particular case, the code used by the ScamClub group hijacked a user's browsing session from a legitimate site, where the ad was showing, and redirected victims through a long chain of temporary websites, a redirection chain that eventually ended up on a website pushing an adult-themed site or a gift card scam.
These types of malvertising campaigns have been going on for years, but this particular campaign stood out due to its massive scale, experts from cyber-security firm Confiant told ZDNet today. "On November 12 we've seen a huge spike in our telemetry," Jerome Dang, Confiant co-founder and CTO, told ZDNet in an email. Dangu says his company worked to investigate the huge malvertising spike and discovered ScamClub activity going back to August this year.
These types of malvertising campaigns have been going on for years, but this particular campaign stood out due to its massive scale, experts from cyber-security firm Confiant told ZDNet today. "On November 12 we've seen a huge spike in our telemetry," Jerome Dang, Confiant co-founder and CTO, told ZDNet in an email. Dangu says his company worked to investigate the huge malvertising spike and discovered ScamClub activity going back to August this year.
It is not uncommon, if you don't have an ad blocker in place on iOS, especially if you use FB's browser, to wind up being dumped to a site offering free iPhones or gift cards. So much so, that an ad blocker is a must for browsing on iOS, otherwise, your browsing screeches to a halt by a redirect and a takeover for these scams. Even legit sites get these fairly commonly.
On Android, Dolphin Browser is the best way to browse, and that also gets rid of this problem with its innate ad-blocking.
You don't go far enough. By conceding that honest advertisers might exist.
Let's rephrase it: Your attention is for sale. People are buying the right to try and convince you to buy shit.
No, fuck that! All advertising is corporate propaganda. We never asked for a public spaces to be cluttered with this shit.
Ads are a blight on the soul of man. All ads must burn. All products that need advertising are landfill-fodder fucking garbage that you definitely don't need.