Hackers Thrust Malware-Laden Advertisements on Star Gossip Site

Google, the Internet giant's Safe Browsing tool recently blacklisted UK's popular personality gossip website Popbitch after hackers hijacked the site's advertisement server and thrust malicious software onto visitors' computers.

States the alert, Web-surfers who may be accessing the website are likely to encounter malicious software on their computers. Apparently, when Google's automated programs detected efforts being made for downloading malware on users' PCs that the alert came up.

Reveals Google's advisory that when the company tested a total of 18 pages on the website during a 90-day period in the recent past, it found that 13 pages thrust malware that was downloaded and run devoid of user permission. Google last visited the site on 2010-09-16 when it also found suspicious content on it, the company indicated. Ecommerce Journal published this on September 17, 2010.

The malware referred to on Popbitch reportedly includes one attack code that if successfully executed causes two fresh processes on average to get installed onto the attacked system.

Meanwhile, Popbitch too said that the website was pushing malware as well as that the risk on it was attributed to corrupt ads. TheRegister published this on September 16, 2010.

A spokeswoman of Popbitch elaborated that they had been able to reach at the problem's crux and were only looking forward to Google's signal of declaring the site problem-free. TheRegister reported this.

The spokeswoman further explained that the Open Ads X advertisement server they were using had vulnerability. Currently they had de-associated all open ads off Popbitch as well as were moving onto the upgraded version 2.8.7 of OpenAds, she added.

Besides, Popbitch was as well altering other aspects of the website so that the problem didn't occur again.

Significantly, of late, the notorious Pirate Bay torrent tracker website also produced corrupt banner ads that resulted in the same problem of OpenAds installation.

Thus security specialists state that businesses should now raise their own awareness about the ways to implement the right security practices with respect to their websites so that their brand, clients and revenue remain protected. However, malware monitoring as one measure shouldn't be let to expose such websites.

Related article: Hackers Redirect Windows Live Search to Malicious Sites

» SPAMfighter News - 9/29/2010