'Infect Me'
No thanks.
Posted on 05/19/2007 11:32:11 AM PDT by Zakeet
Hundreds of users have clicked through to a Google AdWords advertisement offering to infect users with a virus, according to a blogger.
The experiment, run by Didier Stevens, a blogger who says he works for the consultancy group Contraste Europe, is the latest, if slightly puzzling development to reinforce the growing danger from drive-by downloads.
To see how easy it was to lure in users via Google's AdWords, Stevens bought the drive-by-download.info domain and placed an AdWords ad reading:
Drive-By Download
Is your PC virus-free?
Get it infected here!
drive-by-download.info
Stevens has run the campaign for six months now, with 259,723 ad displays, and says he has had 409 clickthroughs.
The ad has cost him only 17 euros so far, which by Stevens' reckoning adds up to €0.04 per potentially compromised machine. Most of the systems visiting the site, 98 percent, ran Windows.
"I'm sure I could get much more traffic with a higher Google Adwords budget and a better-designed ad," Stevens said in a blog posting.
Stevens said he deliberately made the ad look fishy, but encountered no problems from Google.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What a way with words this person totes.
I thought it might be one o’ them “Meet me today, **** me tonight”, ‘dating’ sites.
Ironically, that ad is virtually identical to real ads offering PC virus cleaners. “Is you PC infected? Click here for a free test” is one I’ve seen.
I’m paranoid. I only download from known software sites which were recommended by objective third parties.
I also run my virus scan and spy scan daily, plus I have additional backup ad scans I run at my discretion.
Only 0.16% clicks. Some of which could have been accidental clicks or clicks by non-english readers.
Maybe people are trying to hose up others computers as a joke at work or something.
Totally weird.
“How many are people interested in computer security who are going there just to watch what happens?”
That’s true as well.
'Infect Me'
No thanks.
heh.
That’s what I was thinking - like at an internet cafe or a school computer lab.
ping
I’ve recently run into a Windows file that downloads from web pages, which pops up my virus alert. I’m not on a Windows machine (have a Macintosh), but my anti-virus programs checks for everything, even Windows stuff. So, it has popped up this one kind several times from various web sites, which is supposed to redirect your Internet connection to a bogus site and fool you into believing you might be going to a bank, but are actually going to someone else’s site that has replaced the bank’s site. It only comes up when you try to access your bank.
Fortunately with the Mac, it won’t do a darned thing, even if I didn’t stop it with my anti-virus program. That’s not true, though, with the Windows machines...
Most of the systems visiting the site, 98 percent, ran Windows.Rat voters are so stupid!
Uh huh... so are Windows users.
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