Malicious ads have been discovered on the UK version of Match.com.

Malwarebytes found the ads and has reported that the malicious ads could result in the downloading of ransomware to the victims computer.

Anyone clicking on the ads would be redirected to a series of sites the ultimately leads to a site where the victims computer is checked for outdated software.

Bugs in the versions of Flash, Java, Adobe Reader and Silverlight used in browsers were all being exploited by the malicious code. The two most frequent results are either the variants of the CryptoWall ransomware and/or the Bedep ad fraud Trojan.

A spokesperson for Match.com, who reported that the site is aware of the ads and is investigating the issue, stated: “We take the security of our members very seriously indeed.”

David Kennerley, senior manager for threat research at Webroot commented, “Malvertising is becoming a go-to method for fraudsters, with Yahoo! and Australian operator Telstra also falling foul last month. Money is the primary motivation for attacks of this nature and often these malicious ads are for additional attacks.”

Source: SCMAgazine