
The top ad when you Google 'amazon' is a scam - mussorsky
If you google amazon the top ad is a blue screen saying your computer has a virus.
======
ocdtrekkie
This has been going on for a week, but the thing that hits the top of HN is
that they updated Google Voice. Serious security issues need not apply to
front page.

I've pinged a couple security experts directly, nobody's responded on the
issue. I told a tech news site about it. Waiting for someone to recognize that
Google Ads has a major security problem right now.

My submission from a week ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13413399](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13413399)

~~~
atxlurker
I agree with your take. This should absolutely be taken more seriously. At the
very least this site is a scam site, and it seems possible that it is even
more nefarious. Google ads are supposed to be very credible, unlike the Wild
West of some ad networks.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I'd contest the claim that "Google ads are very credible", they ship a lot of
malware. But the key point is that that green URL bar NEEDS to be accurate. If
it says [http://www.amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com) in the green text next
to the Ad marker, it absolutely had better go to amazon.com.

------
atxlurker
There was post early today
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13463263))
where the same issue was happening, but the search was for youtube. The hoax
site looked just like you are describing. Interestingly, I am no longer seeing
any ads on my google searches.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
If you wanna check and see if Google Ads are live, search "windows support".
There's always scam vendors in the ads there, and Google never does anything
about them. Part of their business model to push Chromebooks. :)

As the case is, "windows support" still has three malicious ads up top, but
the YouTube ad from earlier is gone, and it looks like they fixed the Amazon
one, AFAICT.

~~~
atxlurker
Yeah, the ads for windows support show up, however they all actually link to
where the add says they do. In the case of the youtube and amazon ones today,
the add link showed amazon.com and youtube.com respectively, but didn't go to
either.

------
mussorsky
[http://imgur.com/a/BK2MZ](http://imgur.com/a/BK2MZ)

the link looks like:

    
    
      <a href="https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&amp;ai=DChcSEwj8iuex69nRAhVXSw0KHXcfCUQYABAA&amp;sig=AOD64_0AaqtlbAP0hKyAWBp_-__B2ea1KA&amp;q=&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjrhN-x69nRAhVG7IMKHXZkDtMQ0QwIGg&amp;adurl=" id="vs0p1c0" onmousedown="return google.arwt(this)" class="_kBb r-i6LUDLieQfS4" data-preconnect-urls="http://www.amazon.com/,http://mail-google.co/" jsl="$t t-zxXzjt1d4B0;$x 0;">amazon.com - Amazon - 20% off on all products&lrm;</a>

~~~
mussorsky
[http://imgur.com/a/psP7X](http://imgur.com/a/psP7X)

The search looks legit and everything though, even shows the url as
www.amazon.com

------
Riscaly
For years the top result in bing for "chrome" was a virus. Again bing showed
the url as google.com and the site was made to look like google.

~~~
NTripleOne
I'm sure nobody over at MS totally unintentionally overlooked that for a long
while. :^)

------
nrjdhsbsid
So this is the aftermath of all the shadesters buying adwords accounts off
Craigslist?

------
hnhnic
Adblock is your friend.

