[ISN] WhitePages.com halts ad networks over malware

[InfoSec News]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10466753-245.html

By Elinor Mills
InSecurity Complex
CNet News
March 10, 2010

WhitePages.com has stopped ad networks from delivering ads to its site 
after they were found to contain fake antivirus malware.

"On Monday morning WhitePages received reports from users [about] 
malware in the form of a fake antivirus upsell program that we believe 
originated (against our terms) from a third-party advertising network 
serving ads on our website, in addition to other websites," a WhitePages 
spokeswoman said in an e-mail late Tuesday.

"We immediately suspended the networks in question at which time the 
reports from users subsided," she wrote. "We are working diligently to 
prevent this from happening in the future."

A representative for the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public 
Works said on Tuesday that officials were looking at WhitePages.com and 
Drudge Report as possible sources of malware that had affected Senate 
computers the day before.

Matt Drudge denied the accusation on his site and accused the committee 
of politicking. But several CNET readers reported that they too had been 
hit with the malware when they visited the Drudge Report Web site, a 
conservative news aggregator that sometimes authors stories too.

[...]