
Rogue Ad Attempted to Redirect Wired Readers - joshfraser
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/rogue-ad-wired/
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mike-cardwell
This is what happens when large numbers of websites allow a central authority
to run arbitrary code within their sites DOM. The central authority becomes an
excellent distribution vector for malware so an extremely lucrative target.

People willing to block all cross-origin requests and manually whitelist only
those required (Firefox RequestPolicy addon) are the best protected from these
problems. NoScript users also get brilliant protection. Even AdBlock users are
considerably safer than your average user from this problem.

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joshfraser
Too many people underestimate the power of JavaScript (for both good and evil)

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cheald
Happened to me on Grooveshark, too. Made me turn Adblock back on for 'em.

~~~
wanderr
We try to prevent malicious redirects by interrupting navigation away from the
site with a JavaScript "are you sure?" prompt, but in an effort to not be too
annoying to users who really do want to leave we only pop it up if music is
playing.

~~~
cheald
This happened as I was changing playlists, so that makes sense.

The actual behavior was rather odd - there was a popunder, then Grooveshark
closed, then the popunder came to the foreground maximized, with the usual
ZOMG YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTEDS scare crap.

If you can give me assurance that the offending ad's been dealt with, I'd be
happy to turn adblock back off. I appreciate the service and want to support
it, but malware ads lose my good will pretty quickly.

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drivebyacct2
I presume this is the same nastiness that got Ars flagged by Google's anti-
malware filter earlier today?

