Browsers block Yahoo mail due to 'malvertising'

Published May 11, 2013 2:09pm

Users of Yahoo Mail may have a hard time accessing their accounts after an advertiser showing ad banners on Yahoo started releasing malicious content, a security vendor said Wednesday.

Because of this, many users of Yahoo Mail may see a "Safe Browsing" dialogue on their browsers at least once, Bitdefender said.

"The malicious ads started showing up earlier this morning, when ad pusher eqads.com got blocked by Google Safe Browsing. A closer look into the incident revealed that the eqads.com site is redirecting to a number of malicious domains, including 11lalervo.info (registered recently) and skiajkax.sytes.net," it said in a blog post.

“Malvertising” involves ads purchased through third-party publishers who are modified to serve malware rather than to display a banner. This form of attack had been "common" in recent years, as cyber-crooks try to attack visitors of popular websites like Yahoo.

"However, this is the first time that an ads publisher has been completely subverted and all traffic hijacked to malware," it said.

In the latest attack, Bitdefender said the two domains had been briefly available and served Java and PDF exploits via crimeware kits.

"Since it is unknown for how long the advertiser has been compromised to load malicious contents from third-party websites, you should perform a 60-second QuickScan to see if you have been infected," it suggested. – KDM, GMA News

Tags: malvertising, yahoosafebrowsing, yahoomail