Google squashes malvertising attack

Google has stopped a wide spread malicious advertising attack that pushed people to dodgy sites hawking weight loss and skin care products.

Denis Sinegubko, a senior malware researcher with Sucuri, said the malicious ads were delivered to website owners signed up with Google’s AdSense program.

Sinegubko wrote that when the ads were displayed, the malicious advertisements automatically redirected a person’s browser to bogus websites. Those websites were designed to look like legit sites like Forbes and Good Housekeeping, but were pushing spammy offerings for anti-aging and brain-enhancing products.

The type of attack, known as malvertising, has been an ongoing problem for online advertising companies. Scammers will often submit non-malicious ads for approval then swap those out for malicious ones.

Sinegubko wrote: “If Google doesn’t control scripts in their ads, AdSense may eventually turn into the largest malvertising platform despite of the still prevailing opinion that Google Ads are probably the most safe ad network out there."