Major Ad Networks Found Serving Malicious Ads

“Two major online ad networks–DoubleClick and MSN–were serving
malware via drive-by download exploits over the last week, experts
say, after a group of attackers was able to trick the networks into
displaying their ads by impersonating an online advertising
provider.

“The scheme involved a group of attackers who registered a
domain that was one letter away from that of ADShuffle.com, an
online advertising technology firm. The attackers then used the
fake domain–ADShufffle.com–to dupe the advertising networks into
serving their malicious banner ads. The ads used various exploits
to install malware on victims’ PCs through drive-by downloads,
according to information compiled by security vendor Armorize.

“The ad networks only served the malicious content for a short
period of time, but the episode shows just how difficult the
drive-by download problem can be to address.”

Complete Story