Infected online advertising a growing threat to online publishers

Online security is a big concern, and a growing business around the world. While hard for me to understand, there are people out there in the world who get a kick out of screwing up my computer; and yours too. Some will place a virus on your computer with hopes of gaining secure information for financial gain. Others out there do it for 'fun'.

The attacks come at us from every direction. The latest getting national attention is from online advertising. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the trend, noting that hackers had already caused Yahoo! to serve up infected advertising to European users.

I had some limited experience with this happening in the past as well where I work. As a online publisher, this is one of the worst emails / phone calls you have to handle. In the case I was involved in, it was an inconvenience with no damage done; except for the site's reputation of course.

Infected ads are on a sharp growth pattern. Google announced that they disabled over 400,000 sites which hid malware last year, up from only 123,000 in 2012. Online publishers reap benefit from online networks, selling their unsold inventory and providing untold dollars to the bottom line.

I'm not a fan of the ad networks online. While they do help online publishers with much needed revenue through remnant advertising programs, they are also driving down the value of online advertising and marketing. Ad networks provide lower priced alternatives for local advertisers, which is always very frustrating to an advertising sales rep. Nothing worse than seeing your local account on your website on the same day they said no to you, and knowing they paid pennies on the dollar for that advertising impression.

To learn more about the malware threat, check out the article written by Danny Yadron in The Wall Street Journal at:  http://on.wsj.com/1iWHsvR