Trojan Attacks Google Adsense, Publishers & Surfers

Trojan Attacks Google Adsense:
It looks like the virus and malware people are doing it again and are getting nastier with their security attacks. This time it has an effect on many levels. It takes away impressions from Goggle advertisements and can inflict surfers with some very nasty malware.

I noticed this one day while on my site and all my ads were geared to Anti-Virus software, We all know thats not what Random Thoughts is about so I quickly filtered out the ads only to have no advertising show. With Google Adsense ad matching technology I knew this could not be possible so i decided to look into the matter more carefully and this is what I found.

A Trojan is using the hosts file, redirecting Googles ads placed on publishers sites to those from a bad source. BitDefender has Identified the Trojan malware that replaces the text of Google Adsense text ads on publisher sites, Depriving the Publisher and Google from revenue while possibly leading the surfer to Malware Hell.

Google seems powerless to stop the trick since it involves the modification of the internal PC file called the Hosts File on the surfers computer. The host file is used to match the domain names you type in or get to by clicking a link to the Ip address of where the site is located.

In essence the Trojan misdirects your browser to go someplace other than where Google intended. Bit Defender named the malware Trojan.Qhost.Wu Bitdefender later went on the say the Trojan is of medium risk since its not spreading fast. The company did not say how the Trojan is being spread, I can tell you I got it after downloading a free Defrag utility for my computer.

While there is not much you can do about this Trojan and it is being spread from honest looking freeware sites. I would recommend you do a on-line scan of your system at Bitdefender