Malware in Ad Networks Infects Visitors and Jeopardizes Brands | Hacker News Reader

Malware in Ad Networks Infects Visitors and Jeopardizes Brands

proofpoint.com

20 pointsjdangu9 comments

... at this point I think adobe has worn out their welcome. I'm actually surprised that security tools don't just uninstall flash player and acrobat reader preemptively.

Nobody should be running Acrobat Reader at this point. It's just too bloated and awful, and there are so many alternatives.

And the Java Plugin as well. Outside the corporate world it's rarely used anyways (the plugin, not java in general)

Click-to-play is the best feature ever for these kinds of things - pick who you trust. I wish it were made the default.

Now that Apple has killed flash in so many use-cases, I think it would be palatable for major browsers to start forcing plugins like Flash, Java, Silverlight, and Unity to be "click to activate".

Current versions of Java more or less default to allowing nothing to work anyway.

This is the reason I use adblock. I don't think blocking ads on websites is unethical because you should be able to decide what your computer does, but I think as long as the ads aren't horribly awful (in which case don't go to that site) I'd like to think having ads on is the right thing to do. Only that would be true in a perfect world were ad networks weren't vectors for malware. So I run adblock plus.

This. I think I've only ever once had a serious malware infestation on my main machine, and it was directly from a pop-up ad. Even the internet savvy can get caught out once in a while, or misclick a link, or click through a google result to something with automatically executing code.

I'll stop running Adblock the day not running it stops being like walking through a lion's den with raw antelope strapped to your danglies.

This is hardly a new thing.

Ad networks have always had (a very small %, but still there) a problem with people using exploits in flash ads. Especially ad networks for more 'dodgy' sites, that auto enable ads with no checking, no real checking if the advertiser is a legit business etc... (not that the adnetwork that this post is talking about deals with dodgy sites, but just saying its a common-ish problem (when given the 100s of thousands of ad impressions every day by ad networks).

I think i heard that malware nowadays is spread through more ads on adult websites (via 3rd party ad networks, not the sites themselves) than any other method, but i'm not sure on the source for that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com