Forbes made readers tidy up ad blockers and then touted malware

Over the past few weeks, the famous Forbes.com portal has prevented readers from familiarizing themselves with their materials if an ad blocker is enabled on the user's side. So, if a reader with AdBlock or uBlock visited Forbes.com, he was asked to remove the blocker. Otherwise, it was simply not possible to get acquainted with the portal content. It is difficult to find another opportunity, since Google itself does not cache portal data correctly.

But the problem is not in advertising or blockers. As it turned out, after the ad blocker was disabled by the user, he was immediately offered malware under the guise of a regular program. This was discovered by information security specialist Brian Baskin, who took a screenshot of a similar incident.



Adware malware has been around for years, but the software that ran on Forbes.com is something unusual. By the way, from year to year the “species diversity” of such software is increasing. From 2014 to 2015, the level of online infection of user PCs increased immediately by 325%. There are several ways that attackers use to look white and fluffy:

• Downloading malware a few days after the approval of the advertisement;
• Work with every 10 or 20 users who see ads;
• Using SSl redirects in the malware chain;
• Record user data.

Something similar happens quite often. Forbes itself is not to blame for this, because companies of this scale often enter into agreements with ad networks, providing a demonstration of advertising content to the reader. And advertising is shown as needed by the advertiser. There are several ways that cybercriminals take advantage of which “malvertising” can be embedded in an ad network or a site that displays ad content.

And in 2015, many hacked sites began to improve the security system, making it very difficult to determine the source or effect of an attack.



What happened to Forbes cannot be called a unique event. Similar problems were observed at The New York Times, The Huffington Post and other publishers. But it was Forbes who tried to cancel the blocking of ads on its resource, even to the detriment of the safety of the citizens.

By the way, sites that are directly dependent on advertising can survive even if 60-80% use a blocker.

Now Forbes can be considered the first site that decided to ask readers to cancel the blocking of ads, starting to distribute Malware. Most likely, such situations will be repeated, and not only with Forbes, but also with other sites.

By the way, according to statistics, less than 1% usually responds to a request to disable an ad blocker.