Security News > 2024 > April > IT pros targeted with malicious Google ads for PuTTY, FileZilla

An ongoing malvertising campaign is targeting IT administrators looking to download system utilities such as PuTTY and FileZilla.

"We have reported this campaign to Google but no action has been taken yet," , Malwarebytes researcher Jérôme Segura shared.

Malicious ads served via Google, Bing, or other reputable websites deliver RATs, infostealers, loaders, and other malware that's usually masquerading as legitimate software.

"In this latest campaign, searching for"Putty" or FileZilla" on Google Search returns sponsored ads at the top of the search results, which point to cloaking pages, then to decoy sites if the server detects bot or crawler traffic or potential visits by security researchers.

Malvertising has become such a pervasive threat that new campaigns are getting flagged every day.

"Endpoints can be protected from malicious ads via group policies that restrict traffic coming from the main and lesser known ad networks."

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2024/04/10/malvertising-putty-filezilla/