Gadgets and technology blog Gizmodo has warned that it may have unknowingly passed on malware to its readers.
The blog, launched in 2002 as part of the Gawker Media network, claims to attract upwards of 100 million page views a month and has fallen foul to an elaborate scam designed to infect the blog's advertisements with malware.
Earlier today, the site's editorial director Brian Lam revealed that the site was last week fooled into running advertisements by a group claiming to be representatives of Japan's Suzuki motor corporation. Security firm Sophos has confirmed that Gizmodo's disguised advertisements were "laced with malware" designed to convince users that their computer is at risk - the rogue software then attempts to trick the user into purchasing a potentially-harmful solution.
The technique is known as scareware, and can be used to obtain credit card information of unsuspecting users. A similar threat surfaced in September when The New York Times website was infiltrated by advertisements from a group of criminals claiming to be representatives of VoIP company, Vonage.
Gizmodo has apologised to its readers with the following statement:
"Guys, I'm really sorry but we had some malware running on our site in ad boxes for a little while last week on Suzuki ads. They somehow fooled our ad sales team through an elaborate scam. It's taken care of now, and only a few people should have been affected, but this isn't something we take lightly as writers, editors and tech geeks. (And we would have noticed sooner except everyone on staff is on OS X or Linux for production machines.) Everything should be cleared up but you should be checking "qegasysguard.exe" if you're experiencing random popups. Be careful, load up some antivirus and make sure your system is clean. I'm sorry."
