Eternal Vigilance – The Price of Internet Surfing

Just about the time you thought it was at least possible to casually peruse the internet without full armor, it appears that it’s time to put the chainmail back on, no matter how much it chafes.

Places you thought you could trust are popping up with embedded trojans, making it unsafe to peer through your firewall without the very latest internet Lysol. Google and Yahoo ads, once only a place to eventually relieve you of your money, are now sometimes attempting to infect your machine with all manner of nastiness.

from Download Squad

Users who clicked on booby-trapped banner ads served by Google’s DoubleClick and a Yahoo-owned service called Right Media ended up having their machines infected by a trojan, according to a report from The Register. The sneaky ads showed up on the Drudge Report, Lyrics.com, slacker.com and horoscope.com. Google says that publishers who use DoubleClick have to approve the banner ads that show up on their sites, implying that these four sites are at fault for the attack on their users.

The trojan itself was installed via an infected PDF file that opened and closed when a user clicked an ad. It’s called Win32/Alureon, and it opens backdoor access to infected machines. This is serious business, and it’s hardly the first time we’ve seen “malvertising,” but who’s to blame when it happens? Should site owners who buy ads have to scan them first, or should the big ad networks be responsible?

While the lawyers are figuring that one out, it only falls upon you to keep the system that you use, as your window to the world, free of internet grunge and sludge. If you don’t, you might find that the world is a much nastier place, once you get out of the virtual and back to the physical, without the money that was robbed from your accounts, by those internet nasties.

You’ve been warned. Don’t click on things you aren’t prepared to fight off.

§

Comodo System Security (antivirus and firewall – tremendously great firewall,and HIPS+ protection, average antivirus, install firewall and HIPS+, check for antivirus below!)

Avira Antivirus Free (great but no e-mail protection)

AVG Free (great, but a little heavier, because it checks e-mail – use this if you are tempted to open e-mails you are unfamiliar with)

UPDATE: Those who might wish to try Microsoft Security Essentials, as I mentioned yesterday, will have to be patient. Though several places reported that it would be available today, no specific time was given. I apparently was wrong, thinking that at 00:01 PST we’d see it, such was not the case. as of 7:45 AM PST, it is still not available. I suppose Microsoft can be late to its own party if it wants.

OR

Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, or Fedora Linux – all the power, none of the hassles.

AND

treat yourself, use Opera, and know you’re safer, too!

•