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December 19, 2007

Trojan Targets Google Ads via Hosts File

Ad-hijacking Trojan Cuts into Google Revenues:

"BitDefender antivirus analysts detected a new trojan, which hijacks Google text advertisements, replacing them with ads from a different provider. The threat, which is identified by BitDefender as Trojan.Qhost.WU, modifies the infected computers' Hosts file (a local storage for domain name / IP address mappings, which is consulted before domain name servers and is considered authoritative).

"The modified file contains a line redirecting the host 'page2.googlesyndication.com' which should point to an IP of the form 6x.xxx.xxx.xxx to a different address, of the form 9x.xxx.xxx.xxx, so that the infected machines' browsers read ads from server at the replacement address rather than from Google."

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Posted by mhall at 5:08 PM | Add Comment

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