Google ads attacked by trojan virus
December 25, 2007
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Google Ads were recently attacked by a Trojan which would replace the Google Ad with an ad from a different provider. BitDefender said in a statement ” ADVERTISEMENTS placed by Google in web pages are being hijacked by trojan software that replaces the intended text with ads from a different provider ”
The threat, which is identified by BitDefender as Trojan.Qhost.WU, modifies the infected computers’ Hosts file (a local storage for domain name / IP address mappings, which is consulted before domain name servers and is considered authoritative).
The modified file contains a line redirecting the host “page2.googlesyndication.com” which should point to an IP of the form 6x.xxx.xxx.xxx to a different address, of the form 9x.xxx.xxx.xxx, so that the infected machines’ browsers read ads from server at the replacement address rather than from Google.
“This is a serious situation that damages users and webmasters alike,” said Attila-Mihaly Balazs, a BitDefender virus analyst. “Users are affected because the advertisements and/or the linked sites may contain malicious code, which is a very likely situation, given that they are promoted using malware in the first place. Webmasters are affected because the trojan takes away viewers and thus a possible money source from their websites.â€
BitDefender’s website describes the trojan, which it identifies as Trojan.Qhost.WU, as spreading at a “low” level and causing “medium” damage.
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December 25th, 2007 at 11:25 am
This is dangerous stuff, these effected ads can be problem to the PC as well.
December 25th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Yes Nirmal You are right.
Am Also facing this Problem from last 3 days.
Whenver am open any site which have google ads a Tojan Virus Warning comes on the screen.
December 26th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Hmmm this is crap. Wonder how long till I have that problem !? Pain in the a……. really.