Google Flags MSNBC.Com as Malware Site

I was reading news stories this afternoon on MSNBC when one of its pages triggered a malware warning in Google Chrome:

The website at www.msnbc.msn.com contains elements from the site adrotator.mediaplex.feed-mnptr.com, which appears to host malware -- software that can hurt your computer or otherwise operate without your consent. Just visiting a site that contains malware can infect your computer.

According to Google's safe browsing alert for that feed-mnptr.com domain, it has contained three trojan programs and five browser security exploits. The domain has been used as an intermediary to infect users of Digg, CNBC and MSN.Com.

I can't check without visiting the MSNBC page, which would be extremely dumb, but based on the domain the malware appears to be coming in from a third-party ad service. There was a report Wednesday that the Drudge Report had hosted malware, probably from an ad network.

Comments

I can't check without visiting the MSNBC page, which would be extremely dumb...

A tool like curl or wget will allow you to safely download a page and examine it at your leisure.

I've seen this more and more often on the internet. Ads hosted by widgets cause errors in the page. Are there any tools available to prevent this kind of issue.

Its true. I've had the MSNBC site infect me twice, and both time were when I clicked a sports story. I recommend NOT reading their sports section.

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