MySpace Banner Ads
It has become public that the deckoutyourdeck.com ad displayed through the MySpace banner ads program on their website actually installed adware on users machines after a person clicked on the ad.
DeckoutYourDeck.com was exploiting a flaw in Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer. Once you clicked on the ad, a trojan horse by the name of exp.wmf would be installed on your computer. Once that is running it then would silently install adware programs such as purityscan which would then display popup ads and also track internet activity on the infected users computer.
Back in December of 2005, Microsoft had released a security patch to protect users from this type of exploit. This is just another example of why is it so so so important to make sure you keep up to date with system patches from Microsoft.
Myspace is currently in the process of eliminating these ads from appearing in their network.
This brings up an interesting point about the fact that many websites on the internet use adnetworks to supplement their costs of running their website or even to make a profit. Many of these people have no idea of the ads that are going to be displayed on their site. This is going to force them to take a closer look at the network that they are using to make sure they are using legitamate networks.
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