Beware Typhoid Adware

Computer security researchers at the University of Calgary have developed a way to distribute adware without having to convince potential victims to install the adware on their computers.

The researchers -- associate professor John Aycock, assistant professor Mea Wang, and students Daniel Medeiros Nunes de Castro and Eric Lin -- call their attack as "Typhoid Adware" because it spreads like a contagion from an infected computer to other computers connected to the same WiFi hotspot or wired network. "Not only are ads annoying but they can also advertise rogue antivirus software that's harmful to your computer, so ads are in some sense the tip of the iceberg," said Aycock. What makes the attack interesting is that the user of the contagious computer, like the historical figure Typhoid Mary, is likely to be unaware of his or her role in spreading ads to other computers on the same network. What's more, those receiving the ads won't find any malware on their machines, assuming it's adware rather than malicious software that's being spread.