Phishing websites & malvertising: Microsoft targets bad ads with anti-malware suits

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Microsoft continued its legal campaign to crack down on phishing websites and malvertising, filing five suits in King County Superior Court in Seattle, according to Microsoft's issues blog.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is suing phantom businesses. The company said it hopes lawsuits against the business names Soft Solutions, Direct Ad, qiweroqw.com, ITmeter INC. and ote2008.info will help lead it to the individuals behind the companies.

"Although we don't yet know the names of the specific individuals behind these acts, we are filing these cases to help uncover the people responsible and prevent them from continuing their exploits," Microsoft's associate general counsel Tim Cranton said in the blog.

As Cranton explained, malvertising is the industry term for ads that run malicious code that can infect a site visitor's PC. These sites contain malware in the form of scareware fake antivirus or other malware like Trojans that can steal sensitive information such as email passwords.

Many people are defrauded by malicious websites and malvertising. Millions of PCs are infected by malware including spyware, worms and Trojans can lead to identity theft and spam.

Infected PCs are used by malware distributors as botnets, which produce spam to spread infections to even more PCs.

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Microsoft's 'Malvertising' Battle: A Tough Fight to Win?

The malicious-ad market is considered a multibillion dollar business. So far, though, the fight against it has proven to be difficult. Microsoft sued a Texas company over ad-based malware last year, but the problem is widespread enough that lawsuits seem to do little in the way of curbing it. In the new case, Microsoft isn't even sure exactly whom it's going after.

"Although we don't yet know the names of the specific individuals behind these acts, we are filing these cases to help uncover the people responsible and prevent them from continuing their exploits," Cranton explains.