"Online Ads Unsafe". No Duh.

I've written about this before, so it's not exactly new news, but Computerworld is reporting that nearly 80% of all malware delivered to your browser is delivered via ads embedded in web sites, rather than in the content of the sites themselves.

This makes perfect sense to me, since most of the ad networks are pretty incestuous, and an ad placed on one network could easily be distributed by other advertising partners. With sometimes several layers of abstraction between advertiser and advertisee, it can be fairly difficult to trace a malicious ad back to its source.

The article is based on Finjan Software's latest Web Security Trends Report. You can download the complete report here (registration required), or see the summarized press release here.