Malvertising: That’s No Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

In the spirit of Halloween—and just in case ransomware isn’t scary enough—we have something else to keep you awake at night: “malvertising.”

Malvertising (malicious advertising) poses as online advertisements to spread malware by injecting malicious banners into legitimate online advertising networks and Webpages.  Usually, the objective is to control the victim’s operating software, redirecting them to Websites designed to infect systems with malware. Search engines are supposed to have measures in place to prevent malvertising, but no security system is perfect. Notably, Yahoo was the victim of a malvertising attack in August that took a full week to clear up.

Here are a few things you can do to protect yourself:

• Don’t automatically assume that a Website ad is what it appears to be.
• Set your browser to disable pop-ups.
• Make sure your browser plug-ins (i.e. Adobe Acrobat, Flash … etc.) are up-to-date.
• Download files only from sites you know and trust.

Finally, take advantage of the SynchroNet Way and let us make sure your systems and settings are best configured to avoid the nasty tricks that real-life creeps attempt … not just on Oct. 31, but every day.