Avast Reports That Yahoo, Fox, and Google-served Ads Delivered Malware
No one likes ads, but most folks assumed that if you were getting them served to you by major players like Yahoo, Fox and Google, at least they weren't much more than a pain in the ass to look at.
Sorry, not so much.
Cnet is reporting that Avast, a major manufacturer of anti-spyware and anti-virus software, has found viruses and malware in ads that were delivered by platforms owned by some major players. The ads were were placed on sites including The New York Times, The Drudge Report and TechCrunch, and can exploit vulnerabilities in popular programs on infected computers.
The largest number of infected ads was served by Yield Manager, owned by Yahoo, with the third largest number by Fimserve.com, owned by Fox. A smaller number of ads served by MySpace and the Google-owned DoubleClick were also infected.
The ads delivered JavaScript code that Avast calls "JS:Prontexi," a trojan that attacks Windows-based computers and looks for vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Acrobat, QuickTime, Java, and Flash, then issues fake antivirus warnings. The infection does not require the user to click any ad, but to simply see it.
More than 2.3 million cases of JS:Prontexi have been registered by Avast, since it was first identified last December. Which makes 2.3 million more reasons to install the Firefox or Chrome Adblock extension, or use the privacy controls on IE.
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