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Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

this.weekinsecurity.com

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Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#61

Post by still_grokking »

anang wrote: post #57
still_grokking wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL The world has always be run by oligarchs, and nothing changed since ten thousands of years. Most people today on this planet are still slaves.

Black people were bought and sold in the US just a few hundred years ago. For years one of the perks of being a soldier was raping and pillaging, now that lands you in prison (depending on the country of course). The world isn’t some utopia where everyone is treated fairly and there are no oligarchs, but I think it’s hard to argue that the amount of justice is unchanged for all of human history.

> I think it’s hard to argue that the amount of justice is unchanged for all of human history

I agree.

It got worse.

The inequality between people was never so high in history! Hard fact.

Now some people "earn" more money while they breeze in and out then large amounts of people earn in their whole life.

Also now the slaves have to pay everything themself (like food, shelter, clothes, in some countries even education). Progress!

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#63

Post by anang »

still_grokking wrote: post #61
anang wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black people were bought and sold in the US just a few hundred years ago. For years one of the perks of being a soldier was raping and pillaging, now that lands you in prison (depending on the country of course). The world isn’t some utopia where everyone is treated fairly and there are no oligarchs, but I think it’s hard to argue that the amount of justice is unchanged for all of human history.

> I think it’s hard to argue that the amount of justice is unchanged for all of human history I agree. It got worse. The inequality between people was never so high in history! Hard fact. Now some people "earn" more money while they breeze in and out then large amounts of people earn in their whole life. Also now the slaves have to pay everything themself (like food, shelter, clothes, in some countries even education…

I just want to understand:

Are you saying that a black person born in South Carolina today has a worse life and with less justice than a black person born into slavery a few hundred years ago?

I don’t think slaves got university educations for free.

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#64

Post by jiveturkey »

nashashmi wrote: post #16

Websites being hacked does not necessitate ad block. It necessitates better browser security. The title here is fallacious. I say this in all fairness as someone who uses adblock extensively, where I don't even like cookies being held by ad companies.

indeed. the post may as well be, javascript must be disabled.

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#65

Post by harvey9 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #60
strictnein wrote: post #5

Probably should just link to the security researcher's post, since it's far more informative: https://doublepulsar.com/adform-compromised-to-serve-crypto-...

The bitcoin wallet swap thing that these malware scripts often push, how effective is it? It just seems so niche, if I'm doing stuff with my crypto wallet, I'm more likely to do it from my phone where I wont be copying and pasting to and from a web browser, maybe a webview if anything? I always double check the characters match up anyway... I am just shocked the level of effort for the most niche hack.

Another comment noted over 100,000 USD passing through an associated wallet. I don't know how much work went into this but my hunch is it has paid off pretty good even compared to legit tech work.

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#66

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

shevy-java wrote: post #20

The sad thing is that we need adblockers in the first place. Granted, even in the 1990s there were ads; I remember blinking banners and what not. But often the underlying website was still fine as such. Fast forward some years. Now if you look at e. g. medium.com but many other websites, you are CONSTANTLY bombarded with pointless pop-ups, slide-ins, and pester-naggers. No I do use ublock origin (it works on thorium…

>>> Nowadays when a slide-in appears that sneaks through ublock origin

Does that really happen ? I don't know what this is

Note: I have Ublock set with no JS permissions by default, so maybe that's why i never see a slide-in menace ?

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#67

Post by CM30 »

It's definitely proof that dynamic ads added via an external script library are a massive security risk, that's for sure. Even if the provider doesn't actually get hacked like Adform here, you're still banking on them being able to reject/filter out malware and malicious ads, which plenty of 'credible' networks seem completely unable or unwilling to do.

Going online without an adblocker just feels like playing with fire, especially nowadays.

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#68

Post by WarmWash »

horsawlarway wrote: post #47
WarmWash wrote: post #44

The discussion around Ad blocking is, while definitely a needed discussion, is so rife with confusion, dishonesty and and self-serving ideology that we are going to kill the internet while being absolutely 100% sure that never giving compensation for value did not do any damage or play any part in making the internet suck.

Oh give it a rest. You want to talk about killing a system... look at all the perverse incentives that pop up when companies are allowed to sell user attention instead of decent services and products. If the modern social media internet dies because of ad-blockers... good damn riddance.

The alternative is a class based internet where people with money have access to all the services and people without money get the smallest/worse resources.

Everyone takes for granted, or is unaware, that the structure of the current internet is unbelievably progressive (money doesn't matter, attention does, and everyone has the same 24 hours of attention to sell), and yet here we are desperately trying to get away from it.

P.S. The 90's internet is dead and isn't coming back. I'm uninterested in engaging if you think bringing back geocities and IRC is a legitimate strategy that the whole of society would happily jump right into. I can already see my mom uninstalling instagram to hop on mIRC.

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#69

Post by VoidWhisperer »

strictnein wrote: post #7
werds wrote: post #4

Are the crypto addresses known/recorded anywhere? would be interesting to see on the blockchain how much was stolen this way.

The code in question is here: https://pastebin.com/raw/mc7psaNF It appears to be normal Adform code plus two appended chunks at the end. Bitcoin: bc1qmplgt0hcg62jc2guz86wn2sms7tqrsulkkrrls Ethereum: 0xE7983E69df17079ADb0aD7b3458488Cac0dBc573 TRON: TW4AgGnDc2Pk6YAynCtjCKzoKYWPg7nJe (?) Edit: Activity for those addresses: ~$110k bitcoin https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/bc1qmplgt0... ~$55k in ETH https:…

The bitcoin one has moved the bulk of the funds (minus like $500) to this address: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/BTC/bc1qjekyd0...

Re: Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed

#70

Post by inigyou »

anang wrote: post #57
still_grokking wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL The world has always be run by oligarchs, and nothing changed since ten thousands of years. Most people today on this planet are still slaves.

Black people were bought and sold in the US just a few hundred years ago. For years one of the perks of being a soldier was raping and pillaging, now that lands you in prison (depending on the country of course). The world isn’t some utopia where everyone is treated fairly and there are no oligarchs, but I think it’s hard to argue that the amount of justice is unchanged for all of human history.

What is a labor market?

Do you know that today's soldiers still rape and pillage?

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