Over the course of 6 months, 409 people clicked on an ad that offered infection for those with virus-free PCs. Didier Stevens, who ran the ad via Google Adwords, works for Contraste Europe, a branch of the IT consultancy The Contraste Group. Stevens says that he got the idea after picking up a small book on Google Adwords at the library and finding out how easy and cheap it is to set up an ad. "You can start with a couple of euros per month. And that gave me an idea: this can be used with malicious [intent]. It's a way to get a drive-by download site on the first page of a search."
Stevens bought the drive-by-download.info domain, set up a server to display a "Thank you for your visit" message and to log the requests. No PCs were harmed in this experiment, he emphasizes. Then he started the Google Adwords campaign, using combinations of the words "drive-by download" along with the ad. His ad was viewed 259,723 times and clicked on 409 times, for a click-through rate of about 0.16%. The experiment cost him $23, or 6 cents per click/potentially infected machine.
Of the 409 people who clicked, 98% were running Windows machines, according to the user agent string, which is a text string that identifies a Web site visitor to a server. Users using different versions of IE, Safari, Opera, Firefox and SeaMonkey all clicked the ad. Stevens says that he designed his ad to make it look fishy, but he had no problem getting Google to accept it and has had no complaints to date. And, although a healthy amount of people clicked on it, he said there's "no way to know what motivated them to click on my ad. I did not submit them to an IQ-test." Stevens said he's sure he could get much more traffic if he invested more in his Google Adwords budget and came up with a better designed ad.
View: Drive-By Download
News source: Physorg
Stevens bought the drive-by-download.info domain, set up a server to display a "Thank you for your visit" message and to log the requests. No PCs were harmed in this experiment, he emphasizes. Then he started the Google Adwords campaign, using combinations of the words "drive-by download" along with the ad. His ad was viewed 259,723 times and clicked on 409 times, for a click-through rate of about 0.16%. The experiment cost him $23, or 6 cents per click/potentially infected machine.
Of the 409 people who clicked, 98% were running Windows machines, according to the user agent string, which is a text string that identifies a Web site visitor to a server. Users using different versions of IE, Safari, Opera, Firefox and SeaMonkey all clicked the ad. Stevens says that he designed his ad to make it look fishy, but he had no problem getting Google to accept it and has had no complaints to date. And, although a healthy amount of people clicked on it, he said there's "no way to know what motivated them to click on my ad. I did not submit them to an IQ-test." Stevens said he's sure he could get much more traffic if he invested more in his Google Adwords budget and came up with a better designed ad.
View: Drive-By Download News source: Physorg
have to agree with you, you are a loooser
Neither does the OS of choice. Don't be childish, OK?
What's funny about that? The statement is more or less true.
Now tell me you're smart enough to distinguish between the following two statements:
98% of Windows users are stupid.
I don't wanna dig at apple but you seem to be a pathetic fanboy so lets give you something to moan about....
Maybe what this actually says is: Apple are so stupid they are only able to get less than 2% of stupid people to buy their computers.
Or even maybe Apple have less than 8 people use their computers, (2% of the 409)
Oh look I can be childish too! yay!
On the off chance you're referring to my comment above, let me invite you to read the relevant part of it again:
98% of Windows users are stupid.
I was making no assertions whatsoever. I was asking if someone could distinguish between the two statements. Since many people seem to think that both statements mean the same thing – which they certainly do not – it was a reasonable question.
However, I also did say earlier that the statement of, "98% of stupid people use Windows", was "more or less true". So what did I mean?
Obviously, if a majority of all computer users (±86%) run one or another version of Windows – and some of them are stupid – then it's reasonable to assume that a majority of stupid computer users run Windows. Of course that also necessarily means that a majority of computer users who are not stupid also use Windows.
Ultimately, an individual's relative intelligence has little to do with which OS he or she ends up using. For anyone to imply otherwise is just plain stupid!
These people advertise on Live Search and make money from Google!
Is your PC virus-free?
Get it infected here!
drive-by-download.info
Thank you for your visit!
Good fun clicking it again and again and again. I just can't get enough thanks!
Just sings "YOU ARE AN IDIOT HAHAHAHAHA!" and gives you a seisure.
IE6 is still outdrawing IE7 in about a 3:2 ratio.
I also saw a trickle (about less than half a percent of IE7) with IE5.5. IE5.0 is half-again that, and IE4, a fifth of IE5.0.
Strangely, a tiny number of hits were recorded for Win95 users and users on IE2.
If it were that "dodgy looking", and Google still accepted it, then they should be ashamed of themselves.
UAC Repells most viruses anyway
Then I hope you get viruses seeing as UAC prevents some of them like the OP just said.
WOW
/irony
A really good, really well-targeted ad may get 5% click-throughs.
A typical one, 0.1 to 1%.
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