Malware in Ad Networks Infects Visitors and Jeopardizes Brands (opens in new tab)

... at this point I think adobe has worn out their welcome. I'm actually surprised that security tools don't just uninstall flash player and acrobat reader preemptively.

This is the reason I use adblock. I don't think blocking ads on websites is unethical because you should be able to decide what your computer does, but I think as long as the ads aren't horribly awful (in which case don't go to that site) I'd like to think having ads on is the right thing to do. Only that would be true in a perfect world were ad networks weren't vectors for malware. So I run adblock plus.

This is hardly a new thing.

Ad networks have always had (a very small %, but still there) a problem with people using exploits in flash ads. Especially ad networks for more 'dodgy' sites, that auto enable ads with no checking, no real checking if the advertiser is a legit business etc... (not that the adnetwork that this post is talking about deals with dodgy sites, but just saying its a common-ish problem (when given the 100s of thousands of ad impressions every day by ad networks).

I think i heard that malware nowadays is spread through more ads on adult websites (via 3rd party ad networks, not the sites themselves) than any other method, but i'm not sure on the source for that.