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Top porn sites 'pose growing malware risk' to users
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Apr 10, 2013, 6:46:07 PM4/10/13
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Top porn sites 'pose growing malware risk' to users
By Dave Lee
Technology reporter, BBC News
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Some advertisements were found to be installing harmful
software on users' machines without consent
Browsing some of the internet's most popular pornography
websites is increasingly putting visitors at risk,
research has found.
Advertisements displayed by the sites, which are visited
by millions every day, were found to be installing
harmful files without users' knowledge.
Researcher Conrad Longmore found that two popular sites -
xhamster and pornhub - posed the greatest risk.
He said it should be easier for users to report malicious
advertising.
He said it was primarily Windows users at risk, but that
criminals were increasingly turning their attentions to
mobile devices.
While none of the porn sites observed hosted any malware
themselves, it was the embedded advertisements within
their pages that created problems for users.
"We call these malicious advertisements 'malvertising',"
explained Mr Longmore.
"The way the ads are bought and sold across all websites
is incredibly complex.
"Ads can often be repackaged and resold so that it is
hard to tell where they originated from, and the
criminals behind them go to great lengths to disguise
what they are doing."
'Sudden spike'
Mr Longmore compiled his figures using Google's
diagnostic advice service, which regularly analyses
websites for harmful content.
The data showed that xhamster - listed by monitoring firm
Alexa as the 46th most popular site on the internet - had
malvertising on 1,067 out of 20,986 pages (5%) screened
in the past 90 days.
"Part of the problem is that porn is a taboo subject�
Conrad Longmore
Security researcher
According to Alexa's statistics, the average user of
xhamster would look at 10.3 individual pages - meaning a
potential 42% risk of stumbling across harmful adverts in
each viewing session.
Another site, pornhub, was found to have dangerous
advertising on 12.7% of its pages.
Mr Longmore said: "There seems to have been a sudden
spike in malware on popular sites, especially in the past
week or so. "
However, the web's most popular porn site, xvideos, was
not found to have any harmful adverts in the time sampled
by Google's system - a sign the site had "cleaned up".
Reporting mechanism
Mr Longmore believes a culture of users being afraid to
"kick up a fuss" means many instances of malvertising go
unreported.
"Part of the problem is that porn is a taboo subject," he
said.
"But the reality is that these are hugely popular sites
with many of them in the top 100 most popular sites
globally. Some of them pull in more traffic than the BBC,
so this is potentially a very big issue.
"Site operators could put a quick reporting mechanism on
their sites to flag up bad ads and other concerns, and ad
networks should also take some responsibility here.
"I don't see that happening any time soon, and perhaps
the best thing that users of these sites can do is ensure
that their machines are up to date."
The BBC has approached the owners of xhamster and pornhub
but has yet to receive any comment.
Related Stories
Russian iTunes shows porn images
Should children be taught that porn is not real?
Porn block plan consultation ends
More at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22093141
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj
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the understanding of environmental, political, human
rights, economic, democratic, scientific, social, and
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constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the
material on this site is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research, comment,
discussion and educational purposes by subscribing to
USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article
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Since newsgroup posts are being removed by forgery by one
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By Dave Lee
Technology reporter, BBC News
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Some advertisements were found to be installing harmful
software on users' machines without consent
Browsing some of the internet's most popular pornography
websites is increasingly putting visitors at risk,
research has found.
Advertisements displayed by the sites, which are visited
by millions every day, were found to be installing
harmful files without users' knowledge.
Researcher Conrad Longmore found that two popular sites -
xhamster and pornhub - posed the greatest risk.
He said it should be easier for users to report malicious
advertising.
He said it was primarily Windows users at risk, but that
criminals were increasingly turning their attentions to
mobile devices.
While none of the porn sites observed hosted any malware
themselves, it was the embedded advertisements within
their pages that created problems for users.
"We call these malicious advertisements 'malvertising',"
explained Mr Longmore.
"The way the ads are bought and sold across all websites
is incredibly complex.
"Ads can often be repackaged and resold so that it is
hard to tell where they originated from, and the
criminals behind them go to great lengths to disguise
what they are doing."
'Sudden spike'
Mr Longmore compiled his figures using Google's
diagnostic advice service, which regularly analyses
websites for harmful content.
The data showed that xhamster - listed by monitoring firm
Alexa as the 46th most popular site on the internet - had
malvertising on 1,067 out of 20,986 pages (5%) screened
in the past 90 days.
"Part of the problem is that porn is a taboo subject�
Conrad Longmore
Security researcher
According to Alexa's statistics, the average user of
xhamster would look at 10.3 individual pages - meaning a
potential 42% risk of stumbling across harmful adverts in
each viewing session.
Another site, pornhub, was found to have dangerous
advertising on 12.7% of its pages.
Mr Longmore said: "There seems to have been a sudden
spike in malware on popular sites, especially in the past
week or so. "
However, the web's most popular porn site, xvideos, was
not found to have any harmful adverts in the time sampled
by Google's system - a sign the site had "cleaned up".
Reporting mechanism
Mr Longmore believes a culture of users being afraid to
"kick up a fuss" means many instances of malvertising go
unreported.
"Part of the problem is that porn is a taboo subject," he
said.
"But the reality is that these are hugely popular sites
with many of them in the top 100 most popular sites
globally. Some of them pull in more traffic than the BBC,
so this is potentially a very big issue.
"Site operators could put a quick reporting mechanism on
their sites to flag up bad ads and other concerns, and ad
networks should also take some responsibility here.
"I don't see that happening any time soon, and perhaps
the best thing that users of these sites can do is ensure
that their machines are up to date."
The BBC has approached the owners of xhamster and pornhub
but has yet to receive any comment.
Related Stories
Russian iTunes shows porn images
Should children be taught that porn is not real?
Porn block plan consultation ends
More at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22093141
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.jai-maharaj
o o o
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used
for the educational purposes of research and open
discussion. The contents of this post may not have been
authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion
of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright
law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely
not be read, considered or answered if it does not
contain your full legal name, current e-mail and postal
addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views
expressed by others are not necessarily those of the
poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted
material the use of which may or may not have been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This
material is being made available in efforts to advance
the understanding of environmental, political, human
rights, economic, democratic, scientific, social, and
cultural, etc., issues. It is believed that this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the
material on this site is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research, comment,
discussion and educational purposes by subscribing to
USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article
for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed by forgery by one
or more net terrorists, this post may be reposted several
times.
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