New York Times Bearing Ad-Based Malware

The official website of New York Times, NYTimes.com, is struggling with problems caused by an illegal advertisement. The rogue advertisement cautions readers that their system might have been infected with a virus and takes them to a malicious website that offers them anti-virus products.

Most probably, the site has been taken over by a malware scammer who is trying to deceive visitors into downloading destructive software onto their hard drives.

Website visitors are saying that the advertisement, which seems to be in the form of spiteful JavaScript code, tries to take control of the browsing session by averting the navigation buttons being used to return to the website of the New York Times once the pop-up is activated.

For example, the rogue antivirus is a trick that leads some of the cybercriminals spreading it to earn decent money. They are paid if someone installs it and would at times take a cut if a user registers it.

Either way, the situation is bleak for users, because if not registered, the rogue antivirus will deter performance of the system, restrict access to several sites and security applications and also expose the system to other potential malicious downloads.

Not only there is loss of money in case of registration of the bogus software, but also the private details revealed during the registration process are at the risk of being compromised.

The security experts add that the problem with the website of the New York Times is that it uses various channels for advertisements, so the emergence of rogue anti-virus ads may be the freak outcome of a blind ad purchase. Earlier, authentic ads have been taken over to serve malware by advertising networks that either did not trace the harmful ads in screening or just not check the ordered ads. Thus, there is no obvious clarification for the bogus alerts as of now.

In the meantime, Paul Ferguson, researcher at security firm Trend Micro, stated that in the last few months, anti-virus software has evolved as a big online problem, reported PCAdvisor on September 14, 2009.

So, the officials at the New York Times have suggested users if anyone sees such a suspicious alert, he should not click on it. Rather, users should quit at once and restart the Web browser.

Related article: New Zealand Releases Code To Reduce Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 10/2/2009