Federal Drive

New malware looks like Wikipedia ads

The foundation that runs the online encyclopedia says a new malware looks like a commercial banner on the website.

Federal News Network Staff

May 16, 2012 11:23 am

< a min read

Wikipedia users who find ads on the website’s pages have likely fallen victim to malware. The malware installs itself as a browser extension called “I want this” in Google Chrome, then inserts a commercial banner at the top of Wikipedia pages.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that operates the online encyclopedia, said in a blog post that it only ever displays banners for the foundation’s charitable causes. The website operates on donations only. It added that other popular browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer, “likely” have similar malware injecting ads onto its site.

Users can combat the malware by disabling add-ins on their web browsers, but even that may not fix the source of the problem. Wikimedia recommended using a malware scan such as Ad-Aware or Malwarebytes to remove the problem from infected computers’ operating systems.

For more recommendations on how to remove the malware, read the full blog post.

This story is part of Federal News Radio’s daily Cybersecurity Update. For more cybersecurity news, click here.