Millions of honest, hard-working porn lovers across the US, UK, Canada and Australia have been exposed to notoriously hard-to-detect malvertising virus thanks to their industrious wank-bank perusing.
In fact, so widespread was the exposure to the Kovter malware that tech firm Proofpoint are suggesting anyone who’s visited PornHub in the last few months check their computers for the virus.
Kovter works via ad popups that appear to offer updates for Chrome or Firefox, but actually download an application that silently clicks on a bunch of ads on your behalf, generating revenue for shady bastards and fucking with your computer while they’re at it.
According to Proofpoint:
Kovter is ad fraud malware which means that it launches invisible browser sessions and clicks ads on the user’s (and threat actor’s) behalf. It tends to cause sluggish web browsing and slows down overall PC performance. It can also consume bandwidth, which users with slower or metered connections may notice.
The tech firm has warned that while this particular bit of malware is just an ad fraud scam, it could have easily been ransomware or an information stealer.
The fact that it’s sophisticated, high-traffic websites like PornHub that are spreading the malware is a big concern – as is the fact that people who cop it on their machines because of their porn viewing habits are less likely to get it fixed, thanks to perceived stigma about their browsing history.
If you reckon your latest skin flick sesh may have landed you an unwelcome visitor, you’ve got a couple of options – check out the removal guide at Bleeping Computer, or bite the bullet and take your machine to an IT specialist. They’re not going to judge you. Probably.