Number: IRCNE2014092312
Date: 2014-09-13
According to “techworld”, malicious advertisements have popped up on websites such as YouTube, Amazon and Yahoo, part of a sophisticated campaign to spread malware, Cisco said Monday.
When encountered, the malicious advertisements cause a person to be redirected to a different website, which triggers a download based on whether the computer is running Windows or Apple's OS X, wrote Armin Pelkmann, a threat researcher.
Cisco didn't identify the advertising network that is serving the malicious advertisements. Although ad networks try to filter out malicious ones, occasionally bad ones slip in, which for a high-traffic site means a large pool of potential victims.
Some of the malicious ads were served on youtube.com, amazon.com and ads.yahoo.com, Pelkmann wrote. All told, 74 domains were serving the ads.
When a victim is redirected by one of the ads, the computer downloads a piece of malware with a unique checksum, making it harder for security software to detect. The download may also contain legitimate software such as a media player. To be infected, the user must be convinced to open the file.
"The attackers are purely relying on social engineering techniques in order to get the user to install the software package," Pelkmann wrote. "No drive-by exploits are being used thus far."
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