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back to article Pirate Bay beset by tainted ads

A hack on ad servers used by the Pirate Bay is exposing visiting surfers to malware. Site vulnerabilities in the ad delivery systems used by the torrent tracking site were exploited to plant malicious scripts, causing sections of the site to be blacklisted and blocked by Google (see here) and various security utilities. …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Same thing happened to Demonoid

    It happened on Demonoid as well, back in February. I was suddenly redirected to a scareware AV site; the problem was fixed about 2 days later. Wonder if the MAFIAA is sponsoring these hacks?

    3 0
    1. Tigra 07
      Reply Icon

      Rent-a-bot

      I wouldn't be surprised if they were also eying up sources where they can rent a botnet to take the site down by force

      1 0
      1. david wilson
        Reply Icon

        @Tigra 07

        Well, I'm sure it must be some kind of Great Conspiracy - after all, it can't possibly be down to any failings on the part of the PB folks.

        1 3
        1. Dante
          Reply Icon
          Black Helicopters

          eltit

          @David Wilson

          Well, AiPlex are apparently attacking sites on bequest of copyright holders so not *quite* that unbelievable.

          1 0
          1. david wilson
            Reply Icon

            @Dante

            Not impossible.

            Though, doubting that there's much honour in the malware crowd, I'd have thought the RIAA/MPAA renting a botnet was maybe something to be looked at after eliminating the more likely possibilities.

            There must be all kinds of personality clashes and rivalries out there

            Not exactly great PR for the RIAA/MPAA if they got found out, and pretty difficult to see how they could ever find a botnet-running-criminal that they knew they could trust.

            As for using a middleman, the Indian episode probably makes it *harder* for someone supposedly respectable to use the excuse in the future of "Well, we hired this company overseas, and didn't know they were going to do anything illegal".

            0 0
  2. Gordon861

    Don't Use It

    I stopped using the site ages ago due to the number of virus and trojan warnings/infections. Not had any problems since I avoided it.

    1 4
    1. No, I will not fix your computer
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      I believe the old [add]age is

      You pays your money, you takes your choice..... ;-)

      0 0
  3. Kelvari
    Pirate

    Another option...

    is to use an ad-blocker program for your web browser. Of course, though, you should always make sure your system is up-to-date anyway, whether it be Linux, Mac, or Windows.

    Jolly Roger for TPB.

    2 0
  4. sisk

    Virus Prevention

    "Surfers can minimise their exposure to these sorts of attacks by making sure their systems are fully patched and running up-to-date anti-virus scanners"

    Or, you know, by not going to TPB....

    6 6
    1. Old Marcus
      Reply Icon

      Yeah...

      Because TPB is the only place in the whole internet where drive by download attacks happen...

      0 0
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    TPB

    Is it still alive? I thought it had perished long ago!

    To quote AJ Rimmer, "He's like a blind, old incontinent sheep-dog, who's had his day. Take him out to the barn with a shotgun and blow the mother away!"

    2 1
  6. isurrenderall
    Pirate

    Adblockers!

    Rule #48 - always use protection. In this case, an adblocker.

    1 0
  7. Mike Flex

    Torrent-related site suffers from malware.

    Who'd have thought it?

    2 1
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Block ads

    I never see any ads on TPB thanks to ad blocking hosts file.

    1 0
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Sins Titulo

    Weren't we reading, earlier today, about a certain Asia-continent firm hired to DDOS Pirate Bay in some questionably ethical cases of response to claims of copyright infringement? If some businesses so believe that their responsibility to conduct business in an ethical manner does not apply, outside of the national border, who can say where the mal-ads would have come from?

    So, how soon before MPAA and RIAA have their own helicopter fleets?

    1 0
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    ads?

    what are those?

    mine's the one with Adblock in the back pocket

    4 0
  11. Cypresso

    Malwarebytes

    I have the licensed version of Malwarebytes. The best thing ever. It blocks all of these kinds of ads. It may be interesting to note that it even blocks ads on facebook some of the time. These ads are not safe.

    0 0
  12. KroSha
    Pirate

    Ads?

    NoScript FTW!

    2 0
  13. mtodd1978

    Update OpenX

    For OpenX users:

    We strongly encourage everyone running the downloadable version of OpenX to upgrade to the latest version (2.8.7). For more info, please visit http://blog.openx.org/09/security-update/

    Michael Todd

    OpenX

    0 0
  14. Jason Rivers
    Linux

    malware?

    Guess I don't see much of that these days....

    I'll get my coat

    2 0
    1. Rick Giles
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      @Jason Rivers

      I like when you get redirected and it tells you that it is scanning the C: drive. Oh, really? When did Slackware start using a C: drive?

      0 0
  15. Eddie Johnson
    Happy

    Fixed

    Surfers can minimise their exposure to these sorts of attacks by making sure their browser is running Adblock and Noscript.

    0 0
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