Update: suspect in custody is a Nicolas Cruz, 18, expelled last year for disciplinary reasons, and who had made threats plus had guns.
There are presently 4Chan lulz report about the identity of the latest school shooter, so one should take all initial claims with the proverbial salt grain.
More interesting are the clickbait sites now exploiting this tragedy. Note that this is no different than exploiting other newsworthy events.
So for a random test, I looked up a domain name listed in a Parkland FL school shooting “news” report that resolves to a Netherlands domain owner that actually uses an African country’s name but goes to malware coming out of India that traps a user into fake tech support.
A large number of publishers – big and small – are monetizing their sites by selling space for companies that provide so-called native advertising, cited as more effective and engaging than traditional banner ads.
Indeed, on a news or entertainment site, users are more inclined to click on links and articles thinking that they are one and the same, not realizing that those are actually ‘sponsored’ and tied to various third-party providers.
Rogue advertisers have realized this unique opportunity to redirect genuine traffic towards their own infrastructure where they can subject their audience to whatever content they wish.
Case in point, we caught this malvertising incident on MSN.com, the Microsoft web portal that attracts millions of unique visitors. While clicking on a story promoted by Taboola – a “leading global discovery platform” which Microsoft signed a deal with in 2016 – we were redirected to a tech support scam page. The warning claims that our computer has crashed and that we must call a number for immediate assistance.
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