Cybersecurity Glossary
Malvertising
Malicious code delivered through legitimate online advertising networks.
What Malvertising means
Attackers buy advertising space like any other advertiser and supply creative that redirects to an exploit or a fake download. Because advertising is served dynamically by third parties, a completely reputable publisher can serve a malicious advert without knowing.
Why Malvertising matters for small businesses and nonprofits
Search advertising is now a common route: a paid result for a well known software name leads to a convincing lookalike site distributing a trojan. Staff searching for a legitimate tool download the wrong one.
What to do about Malvertising
- Deploy ad blocking on company machines, treating it as a security control
- Teach staff to scroll past sponsored results when downloading software
- Provide an internal catalogue so nobody needs to search for a download
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