Even at the peak, the numbers are still less than half a percentage of the total sample — just 407 domains out of 100,000 — but researchers are still troubled by the upward trend, which looks to have continued through this year. Earlier this month, Jerome Segura at MalwareBytes discovered infections in both Yahoo’s ad network and a separate network serving ads to the dating site PlentyOfFish.
Segura says the Cyphort’s findings match what he’s seen. “I think the rise in malvertising really started last fall and can be synced with the Flash Player debacle and the ensuing slew of zero-days,” he says. “Ad blockers are a short term solution but the core of the problem are software vulnerabilities which can be triggered in various ways that go beyond malvertising.”
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