Did You Visit One of These 6 Major Websites Last Week? If So, You Might Have a Virus

Did You Visit One of These 6 Major Websites Last Week? If So, You Might Have a Virus



The Huffington Post, along with several other major websites, displayed advertisements laced with malware in late December through early January, according to an Internet security company.


According to cyber-security firm Cyphort, their labs detected an infection on Huffington Post Canada on Dec. 31 that was confirmed on the main U.S. edition of the news website on Jan. 3.


The ad, from an AOL ad-network, was displayed and ultimately directed users to an “exploit kit” that deployed a trojan virus.


Once installed, the virus disables the user’s ability to use his or her keyboard and mouse, then flashes a pop-up claiming to be from law enforcement saying the person has recently viewed child pornography. To unlock the computer, it demands the user pay a fine.


LA Weekly, FHM, Weather Bug, The Indy Channel and Houston Press were all found to be hosting the malware-laced ads recently, according to Cyphort.


AOL spokesman Gerasimos Manolatos told CNN that they “quickly took the necessary steps to rectify,” adding “AOL is committed to bringing new levels of transparency to the advertising process, ensuring ads uphold quality standards and create positive consumer experiences.”


Manolatos would not, however, reveal to CNN how many computers were exposed to the ads.



(H/T: CNN)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...sites-last-week-if-so-you-might-have-a-virus/

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HuffingtonPost Serving Malware via AOL Ad-Network

On Dec 31, 2014 Cyphort Labs detected an infection at the Canadian website of HuffingtonPost – www.huffingtonpost.ca. On January 3, 2015 we have also confirmed HuffingtonPost.com is similarly infected. Huffington Post is a news aggregator and blog site with more than 51 million monthly visitors. Cyphort Labs has reported uptick in drive-by-infection through malvertising in 2014 and sounded alarms for the web property owners regarding the emerging trend. We believe that this trend presents a significant cybersecurity challenge in 2015. Web site owners should ask questions about their malvertising protection before signing up with ads syndication networks. More importantly, web site owners should deploy infection monitoring and detection solutions to protect their site visitors from malware infection.

The following analysis should help further increase the awareness and understanding on malvertising threats.
http://www.cyphort.com/huffingtonpost-serving-malware/

 

AOL spreading malware of one sort or another huh ! so status quo then