Reader, I bet you've caught on to this pop-culture thing we do, like mashing two words together to get a new word.
Brunch. Staycations. Cosplay. Sitcoms… even "ginormous" was so popular that it made the cut for the dictionary!
But here's a mashup that's not so fun: Malvertising.
The name is short for malicious advertising.
Last fall, Malwarebytes found month-to-month, a 42% increase in malvertising in the U.S.
That means users need to be hyper-aware of these aggressive and hazardous online ads.
Cybercriminals use malvertising to download malicious code onto a device.
Once a device is infected, any number of cyberattacks can happen.
Any online search can bring up malvertising…it can look like sponsored content, or it can hide in ads needing to be clicked on.
And unknowingly visiting a website infected by malvertising can contaminate your device in a flash.
It’s not just the everyday user who needs to look out for malvertising; big companies can fall victim just as easily.
Employees at Lowe’s were targeted by a Google ad inviting them to click a link to visit their staff portal.
The link “myloveslife.net” misspelled the Lowe’s name—which should have been “myloweslife.net.”
However, many employees didn’t even know the real portal URL—a big part of the problem.
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