NYTimes.com visitors encounter rogue hijacking advert
Over the weekend something went wrong, or someone found a security hole, and a rogue advert made it through security checks and on to the NYTimes.com website.
The advert took the form of a pop-up that informed the user their machine was infected with a virus. The browser was then automatically redirected to load the site best-antivirus03.com where it attempted to download malicious software under the guise of being an antivirus solution, called Personal Antivirus, for the imaginary virus on your machine.
Apparently once you are redirected to the fake antivirus page there is no way to get rid of it other than a forced shut down of your browser. Any attempts to press the back button just reloads the page. A note posted on the NYTimes.com website acknowledges the rogue advert and tells users who see the advert to just kill their browser:
Some NYTimes.com readers have seen a pop-up box warning them about a virus and directing them to a site that claims to offer antivirus software. We believe this was generated by an unauthorized advertisement and are working to prevent the problem from recurring. If you see such a warning, we suggest that you not click on it. Instead, quit and restart your Web browser.
As far as we know the NYTimes has yet to figure out exactly how this happened or how many users managed to have the advert served up to them.
Read more at CNET
- By Matthew Humphries | Geek
- TechNews
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