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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: 2) by BK on Monday January 11 2016, @03:38AM
The reason no-one has been sued for this type of thing yet is that it is really unclear who is responsible. And when it is, the clearly responsible party is out of the jurisdiction of the party harmed. But this case could different. We need a car analogy:
Car accidents happen every day because of bad drivers like you. I say you because my driving is perfect. But sometimes, in dense traffic, a bad driver, allows someone to make a turn across traffic. They wave them in.. "It's OK. I'm stopped. Go ahead." And they pull across your lane and into the next and are immediately involved in an accident. It turns out that the (moronic) person who waves the entering traffic through is responsible for their misadventure. Really. [claimsjournal.com]
So it may be that directing users acting prudently by running an ad blocker, an entity may become liable for the result of following those instructions. But we'd have to feed lawyers to find out.
...but you HAVE heard of me.