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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so I'll be sharing not only our monthly tip - but weekly tips on keeping your digital life safe. These will be tips that can help you against many of the threats to our privacy and security, whether at work, school, or in your personal life. You can find this and our other advisories/tips at: www.newpaltz.edu/securityadvisories
In the last week, we're ad blockers - web browser plugins which block many or all advertisements online. You may be asking, "why is this a security issue"? The unfortunate truth is that online ads are a huge cybersecurity issue for several reasons:
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They can be used to directly distribute malware. By this I mean that clicking on a malicious ad (or in some very rare cases just seeing an ad) can cause your computer to download and attempt to install malware. This is especially true if your browser is not up-to-date with the latest updates.
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They can be extremely deceptive, even to the point of giving scary messages telling you your computer has been hacked and to call a number or download some software to fix it. The number is, of course, not a legitimate software or hardware company, but are scammers trying to get control of your computer, your credit card, or both. Any such software linked from such an ad is malicious itself.
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They are often used by cybercriminals to direct people to malicious software. Searching for where to download an application often presents fraudulent sites that masquerade as a legitimate site. The same is often true when you search for how to fix computer errors. This has improved somewhat over the past few years, but it can still be an issue.
Ad Blocking to the rescue!
One thing you should consider, to help defend against these fraudulent ads, is an ad blocking plugin. What these ad blockers do is block most ads (based on sets of rules that are frequently updated). They are installed as an extension or add-on to your web browser. This reduces the security risks of malicious ads. They can also prevent some of the tracking plugins from being used, leading to less information about you being leaked to advertisers.
In general, we recommend the uBlock Origin browser plugin. It can be obtained for free from ublockorigin.com
If you use Safari on a Mac, uBlock is unfortunately not available. We recommend ADGuard for Safari.
What are the downsides to Ad Blocking?
There's two major issues with ad blocking.
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Compatibility issues with sites: There is, effectively, an arms race among some sites between the advertisers and the ad blockers. Because of this, some websites may not work or may explicitly prevent you from using their sites if you don't turn off the ad blocking.
- There are ethical issues some have with ad blocking. Many websites are funded exclusively by ads, and some believe that using ad blocking is effectively stealing resources from those sites.
Though I sympathize with that last issue, my concern is for security first and foremost. Until there's a true change in the advertisement industry where they are consistently vetting their ads (for security, accuracy, and to stop fraudulent ads), I will continue to use and recommend ad blocking.
A good page on ad blocking, and these issues, is Ad-Blockers: The Good, the Bad, the Ethics.