Forbes on line just gave its readers some malware…because
“On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware "exploit kits," lock up their hard drives in exchange for Bitcoin ransom.” – engadget
It turns out that huge numbers of websites are similarly affected. How many? No one can say…and it’s worse than that: Billions of people have been affected.
Malvertising affected DailyMotion…so…128 million were put at risk from that, with malware from the “Angler Exploit Kit” family. In August 2015, MSN.com was hit by another drive by and in July, Yahoo (6.9 billion visits/month) was hit with similar….and on and on.
So, the websites are victims. Don’t blame them. The advertisers are killing advertising on the web, and they are arguably the largest malware delivery system on the web…and they haven’t got the slightest handle on it.
The only real cure is a robust adblocker extension for your browser, or to uninstall Java.
By the way: “Edge” – the new MS browser (not to be confused with AdBlock Edge) – doesn’t have an AdBlock/AdBlock Plus extension…so I’d advise not using it until it does.
Source:
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/08/you-say-advertising-i-say-block-that-malware/
