Microsoft has filed civil suits in King County Superior Court in Seattle against businesses believed to be responsible for placing advertising that hides malware – sometimes called “malvertising.”
The court action was brought against: “Soft Solutions,” “Direct Ad,” “qiweroqw.com,” “ITmeter INC.” and “ote2008.info.”
Bringing the suits gives Microsoft’s attorneys the power to request subpoenas to get contact information from ISPs or other businesses and possibly identify the defendants.
Story here.
According to other stories out there today, we suspect the trail just might lead to a click-fraud group named the Ukrainian Fan Club by way of the Bahamas. Texas-based security firm Click Forensics connected the recent malicious ads that delivered rogue security products on the New York Times web site to a botnet that was once based in servers in the Bahamas – called the Bahama botnet. The recent “Facebook Fan Check virus” also is connected to the same group, they said.
Ukrainian Fan Club/Bahama botnet story here.
Tom Kelchner