Confiant's security research blog on malvertising, ad-delivered malware, crypto drainers and ad fraud campaigns.
HN links it for analyses of malvertising and crypto wallet drainers, and commenters cite it in arguments over whether ads are a real malware risk.
> Name any CSS or JS exploit that had meaningful real-world impact in the last decade. The tale of frequent compromises of browsers via ads is told merely to legitimize the practice of blocking even entirely plain and benign ads.
I think the actual malware infections themselves legitimize the practice of blocking even entirely plain and benign ads.
Ads do still infect people with malware.
https://blog.confiant.com/tag-barnakle-the-malvertiser-that-hacks-revive-ad-servers-redirects-victims-to-malware-50cdc57435b1?gi=9fbcec4471e2
Hell, yahoo was hit not that long ago and users were at risk of infection just by loading yahoo.com.
JS exploits and malware written in JS are common, but so far I haven't seen CSS used to infect systems, just steal data/log keystrokes and add a lot of privacy concerns which is bad enough. I'm already keeping an eye out for a CSS blocker that will only allow a sane subset of CSS and block or limit externally hosted resources.
The notion that advertisements pay for websites is entirely fabricated. Recent research shows massive amounts of fraud with the involvement of the ad industry which eats through the money flowing through the ecosystem. See https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/ad-industry-insiders-are-connected-to-a-fraud-scheme-that?utm_term=.cqVM0x3aYJ#.pnzYnK19rE and https://blog.confiant.com/uncovering-2017s-largest-malvertising-operation-b84cd38d6b85.
Many of the screenshots in the posted article are too small and blurry to be of any use. In the original article [1] they can be zoomed and are actually readable.
[1] https://blog.confiant.com/osx-hydromac-a-new-macos-malware-leaked-from-a-flashcards-app-2af28f1caa9e
Probably a wallet drainer. Connect it with your wallet and empties it.
https://blog.confiant.com/how-one-crypto-drainer-template-facilitates-tens-of-millions-of-dollars-in-theft-66f3794aea4b?gi=7ca6cba243de