Malvertising Campaign Strikes Well-Known Websites

According to Websense the security company's Security Labs, a 'malvertising' run lately struck the widely visited movie website, Myvue.com and the website for auto trading, Autotrader.co.uk as a result of which the two pushed advertisements, which diverted visitors onto malevolent websites.

Indeed, the malevolent advertisements from the sites were so customized that when visitors browsed them, they were served with many disguised redirects prior to loading fake anti-virus software that hampered the common working and utilization of the PCs.

Besides, the advertisements installed a kit for attack codes, which attempted at abusing security flaws within expired editions of Adobe Reader and Java, the security company added.

And although the websites hadn't really been hijacked, they were thrusting advertisements that Unanimis a provider of ads supplied due to which users were taken onto exploit websites quietly and in the absence of their knowledge.

Remarking about this occurrence, Elad Sharf of Websense Security Labs wrote in a blog post that an advantage of malvertising campaigns for cyber-criminals was that even if the miscreants didn't directly hijack lawful Internet sites they could disseminate the malvertising runs on those sites without difficulty; however, the hijacking was done indirectly via supplying a malevolent advertisement. Community.websense.com published this on February 28, 2011.

Said Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluley at Sophos the security company, while acquiescing and adding to what Sharf remarked regarding 'malvertising' that cyber-criminals regarded 'malvertising' as an immensely lucrative business. But, owing to the practice, visitors to the website condemned such a site rather than the ad supplier. Marketingvox.com published this on February 28, 2011.

That means that in the above incident, Myvue.com and Autotrader.co.uk are the probable websites to be condemned whereas Unanimis the ad supplier will continue free of blame.

Worryingly, it isn't merely Myvue.com and Autotrader.co.uk which were targeted with 'malvertising.' For, it has been reported that even the London Stock Exchange and eBay.co.uk became the targets of the latest malvertising run.

Hence to remain safe from such assaults, computer-users are suggested to regularly update their software applications as well as deploy an anti-virus, which has the ability to deactivate Web-based exploits.

Related article: Malvertising Attack Targets TweetMeme

» SPAMfighter News - 3/10/2011