meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
CyberWire Daily

Popunders are not the good kind of ads. [Research Saturday]

CyberWire Daily

N2K Networks, Inc.

Technology, Daily News, News, Tech News

4.81.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode, Jérôme Segura, senior threat researcher at Malwarebytes, shares his team's work, "WordPress sites backdoored with ad fraud plugin." WordPress is an immensely popular content management system (CMS) powering over 43% of all websites. Many webmasters will monetize their sites by running ads and need to draw particular attention to search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to maximize their revenues. The Malwarebytes team discovered a few dozen WordPress blogs using the same plugin that mimics human activity by automatically scrolling a page and following links within it, all the while a number of ads were being loaded and refreshed. The blogs would only exhibit this invalid traffic behavior when launched from a specific URL created by this plugin, otherwise they appeared completely legitimate. The research can be found here: WordPress sites backdoored with ad fraud plugin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're listening to the CyberWire Network, powered by N2K.

0:07.0

Today's episode is sponsored by SRM, your first call for cybersecurity and

0:18.1

investigations. Threats today are evolving faster than ever before and since 2005 SRM has pioneered

0:25.3

tailored security solutions for global corporations and their executives.

0:29.5

Whether it's defending against cyber attacks with their award-winning team of ethical hackers and incident response specialists,

0:36.4

or navigating the murky waters of compliance and ESG challenges,

0:40.9

SRMs, Insight and Straight straightforward advice will help you navigate complex risks

0:46.4

and emerge more resilient.

0:48.4

Their secret, a culture that nurtures the sharpest minds, giving them access to the newest technologies and the freedom

0:55.3

to solve problems in new ways, enabling them to craft simple effective solutions for your

1:01.4

unique cyber challenges.

1:03.7

Search your first call to discover how SRM can help your business. Hello everyone and welcome to the CyberWire's research Saturday.

1:27.0

I'm Dave Bitner and this is our weekly conversation with researchers and analysts tracking down the threats and vulnerabilities,

1:34.1

solving some of the hard problems of protecting ourselves in a rapidly evolving cyberspace.

1:39.7

Thanks for joining us. Yeah, so I've been looking at something called Papanders, which is, you know,

1:52.2

you're browsing the web and you click on the page and there

1:56.5

is a window or a tab that opens in the background.

2:00.4

So that's called Pupander.

2:02.2

That's Jerome Segura, senior threat researcher at malware bites.

2:06.0

Today we're discussing his research,

2:08.0

WordPress sites backdoered with ad fraud plug in. And it's a form of advertising, not the better kind.

2:14.0

I was.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from N2K Networks, Inc., and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of N2K Networks, Inc. and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.