Smut-watchers suckered by evil advertising Security bods have closed off a malvertising campaign targeting an ad network spread through an ad network that targeted smut site P0rnHub. The attacks exposed “millions of potential victims in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia”, said the Proofpoint researchers who discovered the attack. Proofpoint said the campaign was …
Bootnote: Using "Pr0rnHüb" instead of the site's real name helps our news to pass content filters so you can enjoy this news at work.
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"I ain't got time for that" when it popped up. Are these sorts of attack on the rise and are they hard to pull off?
Not least that the user will no doubt be controlling the mouse with the 'off-paw' in many cases.
I can imagine the wrong button might be clicked on what with cack-handedness and the any rhythmic motions from the other hand being carried over.
Maybe a good thing, extending the session, even with the less than salubrious condiment of frustration...
"Using "Pr0rnHüb" instead of the site's real name helps our news to pass content filters "
More to the point, it damn well shouldn't. It's not actually rocket science to set filters to remove p0rn/pron etc. Ditto other midly obfuscated key words. Like spam that has PP1 instead of PPI or acc1d3nt instead of..... Well you get the message. Unfortunately, so do I.
Yes you can add l33t writing to your filter lists but there are easy ways around them by using none English alphabet characters. These wouldn't trigger filters but you can still read it as English.
ᑭ0ЯИнᑌᑲ
This is a mixture of characters from a few different alphabets where the letter have similar shapes as the English letters but sound different
Just hang on a minute.
This was successful?
This was an attack, that required people to halt mid "p0rn session" and install updates?
who stops mid wank to do a bit of browser updating?
Or immediately post-event thinks "i'll just stick that flash update on that popped up on p0rnhub while I was polishing the old chap? People are bloody idiots, aren't they?
...I visited the site in question, and although there was much there I didn't understand, I was delighted to see from a security point of view, that regular and prolonged penetration tests are taking place, very often using multiple entry points simultaneously.
There was also plenty of evidence that extensive hardening has been applied, and the very obvious efforts the researchers are putting into properly finishing the job they started can only be applauded.
I would think the catch rate from this would be pretty low. I would think after 20+ years of "The Internet" that most of the folks who frequent pr0n sites (especially the aggregator sites like this one) would know the sites sometimes push crapware through their ads. It's not like this just started happening last year. Remember the old dialer viruses that would call 900 numbers in the Carribean?
Maybe the Millenials don't know this yet, that could explain a lot.
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