Are malware writers becoming more ambitious?
Yes, if you mean that they’re now trying to catch people who read the New York Times, rather than random visitors to music download, porn and hacking sites. Of course, it’s harder to compromise one of the Grey Lady’s web servers, but one group of criminals recently found the answer: buy advertising. What we now call “malvertising” has grown this year, and it represents a serious threat not just to individual users but to a web that’s ultimately paid for by ads. As Deloitte noted in its predictions for 2009: “Anything that makes large numbers of internet users decide that clicking on online advertisements could be a bad or dangerous thing threatens the current business model of almost every company that does business online.” The New York Times says it fell victim to a malicious ad swap. “The culprit masqueraded as a national advertiser and provided seemingly legitimate product advertising for a week. Over the weekend, the ad being served up was switched so that an intrusive message, cl
