Malware Installed by LiveJournal Ad 199
Jamesday writes "LiveJournal recently introduced an ad-supported level. Over the last few days an advertiser used an ad to install the ErrorSafe malware that tried to trick people into believing they had a fault on the computer that needs them to purchase a fix. The ad used a server-side setting and targetted only those outside the US, to prevent LiveJournal's own checks from noticing it. LiveJournal has apologized for the ad and slow response." Even our readers have had to endure more than one browser-crashing ad campaign from time to time. Thanks for sticking around.
This isn't too surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
Just one ad? (Score:5, Interesting)
How can you NOT take responsibility for malware spread through your own site? I understand that people contract out ads, but geez, come on. No need to draw from the bottom of the barrel.
-matthew
Re:Are there any humans around? (Score:5, Interesting)
One advertising company I used to work for once had a request to configure an ad campaign to run each advert for 30seconds then switch the advert the user was viewing to a different one.
Only later did we discover it was to bypass a websites manual safety check, where they check each advert complies with their rules by watching it for 20 seconds.
Re:Breaking News (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Breaking News (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't confuse communism the theory with the dictatorships the claim to be communist. Communism as a theory disclaims most if not all personal property rights, but it has nothing to do with Murder and Censorship, any more than Capitalism has to do with monitoring bank records and tapping phone calls.
Which doesn't mean I'm pro-communism. The problem with communism is motivation, without the acquisition of something as a goal, what motivation do people have? Who assigns people tasks? Who says the community is best served by Jon running the cash register and Joe cleaning septic tanks? Its a system that sounds great in theory but works like crap in practice
At the same time, there's nothing terribly moral about capitalism either. In an ideal capialist society, The sick, old and infirm are left to die. The people in a capitalistic society may be moral and charitable, setting up orphanages to help stranded children, feeding and housing grandma even when she ran out of savings, but thats not Capitalism.
similar attack possible by PointRoll [semi-ot] (Score:1, Interesting)
What it does is circumvent the Javascript protection between an iframe and the page it lives on. It gives full access to your site DOM from inside the iframe. The reason is so that their content can "expand out" of the iframe and cover part of the page content.
They claim they don't read your cookies, but that's as far as their "guarantee" goes. Someone malicious on their side could easily read those cookies or access form data, etc.
So my point is - this problem is only going to get worse as advertisers look for more and more obnoxious ways to stick ads in your face.
Finally, the sales lady realized that the site I work for doesn't run ads that expand out of an iframe and admitted that they have an alternative which doesn't require the awful Javascript hack. So it worked out for me in the end. The scary thing was she listed some huge high-profile sites that *did* install their file.
You can read their justification here [pointroll.com].
Re:simple fix (Score:2, Interesting)
All flash-based ads get replaced with a placeholder and a little play button, then you get to selectively enable the ones which you require - http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]
Cyberterrorists (Score:3, Interesting)
Why don't we sue them into the ground as pursuing cyberterrorism as a business model?
As Keynes said... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Breaking News (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Breaking News (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just one ad? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, after a couple of rounds, the "free offers" became completely unacceptable. You had to sign up for a magazine subscription, or sign up for Ebay, or something else decidedly not free. Worse yet, they had no tracking system whatsoever, so there was no way to verify that you actually signed up for it. I never met a single person who received their points for signing up for one of those offers. People who complained on the forums got suspended or even banned.
At one point, they started promoting a new offer, one that required the installation of software onto your PC. They claimed that if you just let the program run passively, you would receive special tokens that could later be used in a future section of Outware (which had not been built yet). I was about 12 at the time, so I got suckered into it. As it turns out, not only was it spyware that used your personal e-mail address to spam other people, it was a full-blown virus! Even worse, nobody ever receieved "tokens" for it, and the section of the site to spend those tokens was never built. Once again, complaining about it on the forums could get you suspended or banned.
After a while, the only truly free point offers were the simple 2-points-apiece ones, and they didn't even work. In addition, it changed so that you couldn't spend free points on basically anything anymore - you had to use points you paid real money for.
To be honest, I'm glad I accidentally got my account banned. I wasted too much of my life on that immoral site.
Re:weak effort (Score:2, Interesting)
I know you're probably not referring to me, but for reference, I'm not LiveJournal staff and nor do I play one on TV. I hate LiveJournal ads and I wish they would get rid of them already.
Just to clear things up for anybody who was wondering.
Re:Breaking News (Score:3, Interesting)
--Noam Chomsky
Re:There are very few examples. (Score:1, Interesting)