A Cyberattack With That Latte?

Researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada have a new security threat they want you to know about. Typhoid adware.

From a press release on the attack:

Adware is software that sneaks onto computers often when users download things, for example fancy tool bars or free screen savers, and it typically pops up lots and lots of ads. Typhoid adware needs a wireless internet café or other area where users share a non-encrypted wireless connection.

"Typhoid adware is designed for public places where people bring their laptops," says [associate professor John] Aycock. "It's far more covert, displaying advertisements on computers that don't have the adware installed, not the ones that do."

Rogue ads may seem benign, but Aycock says, "Not only are ads annoying but they can also advertise rogue antivirus software that's harmful to your computer, so ads are in some sense the tip of the iceberg."

Aycock and assistant professor Mea Wang, and students Daniel Medeiros Nunes de Castro and Eric Lin, co-wrote a paper on the Typhoid adware threat. The paper was presented at the EICAR conference in Paris this month.

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