Posted by Erica George
Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:03:00 GMT
The folks at MacHouse have posted a nicely detailed analysis of the steps they went through to track down the origins of a malicious banner ad they found on their own website. MacHouse traced a malicious flash ad through a chain of advertising resellers, and to a company that hadn’t known its own ad had been stolen and co-opted.
The detective work involved is illuminating reading, particularly for any website owners concerned about potentially malicious ads.
Thanks to Sandi at Spyware Sucks for the link!
Posted in all | Tags adnetworks, ads, thirdpartycontent
Posted by Erica George
Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:38:00 GMT
A Danish member of the StopBadware discussion group has highlighted a disturbing outbreak of ad-driven malware on the websites of Danish media companies over the past several days. Cometcom1 posted that within several days, the affected websites were cleaned up, but that the owners of the affected sites seem unwilling to admit their share of responsibility, laying all blame squarely on the ad networks themselves. A lively debate on the ethics of using advertising online ensued.
Cometcom1 reports that there has now been a second round of infection hitting different Danish media sites, leading some users to avoid all media sites and some companies to block media sites preemptively from their networks.
At StopBadware, we feel that both website owners and advertising networks have a shared responsibility to ensure the safety of internet users. While ads are generally hosted remotely, an ad shown on a site is as much a part of that site as its other content. As with any third-party content, we caution website owners to choose carefully what they allow onto their sites.
Posted in all | Tags adnetworks, ads, discussiongroup, thirdpartycontent
