When Ads Go Bad

A long-time trusted source recently alerted me that some inappropriate advertisements were running on Neopets.com, a Web site full of addictive Macromedia Flash games aimed at pre-teens. Surprisingly, the curators of Neopets.com -- major media conglomerate Viacom -- are disavowing responsibility for the racy ads, saying they did not exist on their network and instead were the result of adware or spyware on my source's computer.

Included is a screenshot taken of one of the multiple ads I found on the site, which linked back to Internet dating site True.com. A Neopets.com spokesperson said the ads could not have possibly have been served through its site, and that the ads must have been displayed by malicious software.

"This appears to be a 'malicious' software program and we are aggressively investigating its origin," the company said in an e-mailed statement. "We would never accept this type of ad on any of our company's sites as it doesn't meet any of Neopet's standards."

Neopets could not specify any particular adware or software in existence today that exhibits this type of ad-swapping behavior, but offered to put me in touch with an expert who could talk about how it would be theoretically possible for such malware to exist. Scans with several anti-spyware and anti-virus products returned a clean bill of health on my source's PC. [...]

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Brian Krebs on Computer Security. The Washington Post Company.

Porn & Spyware Found on Govt. and School Sites

It would be great if the compromised Web servers I wrote about last week at Lawrence Livermore National Labs were an aberration, but sadly they are not. Conducting a simple Google search for adult-themed search terms found in ".gov" domains produces some very interesting results, including pages serving up adult videos along with a generous helping of spyware.

Several pages on both the official Web sites for the State of Louisiana and the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority show up prominently in the search results for porn at dot-gov domains. A handful of pages on those sites feature a blank video player that prompts the visitor to install a special video "codec" in order to view the adult movie.

Visitors who agree to install the codec inadvertantly agree to also install a piece of spyware that modifies your browser's home page, produces security alert icons on your Windows desktop, and serves nagging pop-up ads to install bogus anti-virus and anti-spyware security software.

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Brian Krebs on Computer Security. The Washington Post Company