A malicious group has been placing malicious ads on porn sites for the past few months. These ads redirect users to exploit kits and infect them with malware software.
The group is called Malsmoke, and has carried out attacks on “almost all porn networks".
According to security company Malwarebytes, which monitors Malsmoke's attacks, most of the time, the group managed to place malicious ads on small or medium-sized pornographic portals, but recently "hit the jackpot" when it managed to add these ads to xHamster, one of the largest pornographic portals with billions of visitors every month.
Malicious ads use misleading JavaScript to send users to a malicious website that hosts a exploit kit.
Then the exploit kit will uses vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player or in Internet Explorer to install malware on users' computers (Smoke Loader, Raccoon StealerAnd ZLoader.).
Attacks can be seen as a last resort to infect users with old school tools such as exploit kits, the use of which has declined in recent years as modern browsers have become much more secure.
"Despite the recommendations of Microsoft and security professionals, we find that there are still many users (consumers and businesses) worldwide that have not yet changed to a modern browser." he says Malwarebytes.
"As a result, the authors of the exploit kit are targeting vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Flash Player."
