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The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out this week and it featured a prominent security researcher. Other researchers were pleased to see one of their own getting positive attention, and visited the site in droves to view the list.
On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware "exploit kits," lock up their hard drives in exchange for Bitcoin ransom. The exploit used was a version of hackenfreude.
Forbes has recently taken some flack from Soylent News readers for its heavy-handed approach to ad blockers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gman003 on Sunday January 10 2016, @05:42PM
Why don't incidents like this lead to criminal and/or civil charges? (I'm not a lawyer, no idea which system this would fall under). Malware is illegal, and at least the advertising distributor is clearly guilty of negligence, perhaps Forbes themselves. Since they were paid for the service, you might even be able to make aiding-and-abetting charges stick. Even if you can't track down and arrest the actual beneficiaries of the malware, slapping a few advertising companies with heavy fines ought to get them to start paying more attention to what they distribute.