Mac malware that steals passwords, cryptocurrency wallets, and other sensitive data has been spotted circulating through Google ads, making it at least the second time in as many months the widely used ad platform has been abused to infect web surfers.
Like most other large advertising networks, Google Ads regularly serves malicious content that isn’t taken down until third parties have notified the company. Google Ads takes no responsibility for any damage that may result from these oversights. The company said in an email it removes malicious ads once it learns of them and suspends the advertiser and has done so in this case.
People who want to install software advertised online should seek out the official download site rather than relying on the site linked in the ad. They should also be wary of any instructions that direct Mac users to install apps through the right-click method mentioned earlier. The Malwarebytes post provides indicators of compromise people can use to determine if they’ve been targeted.
Google Ads takes no responsibility for any damage that may result from these oversights.
I’m not a lawyer but that doesn’t seem likely to hold up in court.
Yeah… Just because you say you’d prefer to not take responsibility doesn’t absoluve you from responsibility.
Unless it does, in which case I will begin committing crimes and saying that constantly.
Just buy Google ads before committing crimes and you’re all set!
With even the FBI recommending adblockers maybe ads aren’t the thing we should prop up our economy with. They don’t work, people hate them, and now even passively ignoring them isn’t an option. But I don’t know if the world can operate on the Patreon model.
They don’t work? How naive.
On a bigger scale, I think it’s all wasted money. Maybe its the autism, but the more I see a company name, any company name, the less I want it in my house.
if you think it doesn’t work on you, it’s more likely to work on you. if it didn’t work the world would be a much better place, but unfortunately they definitely work.
but i agree it’s stupid especially as a business model and it shouldn’t exist.
You sound like an ad for advertising. I’ve seen the studies and I think our relationship with companies is changing. I trust people/groups/companies very differently than my parents and grandparents do. To just give up… Fuck that.
yeah ads famously criticize the product and talk about how dangerous it is
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The data is very clear… Ads work. They absolutely shouldn’t almost ever, but they do. With the cornucopia of analytics available, companies have long been able to see if their ads work, and if they didn’t, they would’ve stopped long ago. Hell even before the Internet they had ways to prove ads work.
edit: gotta say it’s pretty sad that so many simpletons downvoted this. Ya know, ads working is something that I hate. I hate ads. I want them all to go away. I’m simply stating a well known fact: they absolutely work, even on people like you and I who do our best to block and ignore them.
You’re pretty fragile if that fact upsets you enough to shoot the messenger.
Then stop beating the “it’s all hopeless” drum. You’re certainly not going to change my mind.
Uh I didn’t…
Ads work. It’s a fact. Just because it’s a sad fact doesn’t mean I want you to be sad.
all the more reason to use an adblocker… and a script blocker if you don’t mind the extra clicks to get a whitelist going or to temporarily allow them somewhere.
Are there shared whitelists? It seems like something that isn’t really practical without them. I’m a web developer who has never served one ad but the front-end tools now basically export all JavaScript. You’d probably just get a blank page on any site made recently that’s more complex than a portfolio/resume page.
Larger sites cater towards scriptless web for accessibility requirements.
Smaller sites don’t need SPA, so will most likely work to some degree.
The better (not necessarily bigger) blog systems will use scripting for fancy things, but will have fallbacks and will still work.It’s the middle tier web-app (and sites that want to be a web app but have no reason to be) that will run SPA without any fallback. You know, the ones that want to send notifications and know your location and all that fun stuff.
The person you’re explaining websites to is a web developer and they are correct. There being a ton of websites needlessly dependent on JavaScript is well known and long lived.
Google Ads takes no responsibility for any damage that may result from these oversights
…and there it is, the root of the problem. If this kind of thing did any damage to Google’s bottom line, I doubt it would happen frequently
I absolutely install stuff that doesn’t have a signature verified by Apple, but you should be damn sure you know what you’re installing before bypassing that security.
Good thing Google ads are blocked on my Mac lol.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Digging further into the ad shows that it was purchased by an entity called Coles & Co, an advertiser identity Google claims to have verified.
The reason for this is to bypass a macOS security mechanism that prevents apps from being installed unless they’re digitally signed by a developer Apple has vetted.
The address happens to host the control panel for Poseidon, the name of a stealer actively sold in criminal markets.
The discovery comes a month after Malwarebytes identified a separate batch of Google ads pushing a fake version of Arc for Windows.
Like most other large advertising networks, Google Ads regularly serves malicious content that isn’t taken down until third parties have notified the company.
They should also be wary of any instructions that direct Mac users to install apps through the right-click method mentioned earlier.
The original article contains 534 words, the summary contains 138 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
(Hyperbole) I’m shocked! I have been informed for decades, usually at high levels of snootiness, that Macs don’t have viruses unlike those pathetic other operating systems…
(hahaha)
