Are you a victim of malvertising?

Huw · April 2015

It's been brought to my attention that Brickset has been displaying malicious adverts (malvertising) particularly when viewed on mobile devices via 3G/4G.

I have not experienced it, and if you are logged into the site neither will you because ads are not displayed to members.

However, if you are not logged in and you are seeing Brickset.com seemingly being hijacked and you're sent off elsewhere or you see pop-up windows encouraging you to do something dodgy, please let me know the following:

- how you are accessing the site
- what the advert was
- what it wanted you to do

I recently changed advertising networks so the new one could be the cause. If so I will revert to the old one if it can be proven.

Shib · April 2015

It's not maladvertising but I have just had one that started a video with annoying music (seemed to be talking about Justin Beiber) I don't know about anyone else but I find those really annoying.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5015319/uploads/editor/uv/ay4qkm4dapt7.png

rancorbait · April 2015

Huw said:

It's been brought to my attention that Brickset has been displaying malicious adverts (malvertising) particularly when viewed on mobile devices via 3G/4G.

I have not experienced it, and if you are logged into the site neither will you because ads are not displayed to members.

However, if you are not logged in and you are seeing Brickset.com seemingly being hijacked and you're sent off elsewhere or you see pop-up windows encouraging you to do something dodgy, please let me know the following:

- how you are accessing the site
- what the advert was
- what it wanted you to do

I recently changed advertising networks so the new one could be the cause. If so I will revert to the old one if it can be proven.

Shib said:

It's not maladvertising but I have just had one that started a video with annoying music (seemed to be talking about Justin Beiber) I don't know about anyone else but I find those really annoying.

Anything related to Justin Beiber is annoying ;)

glosminifigfan · April 2015

This just started happening to me today.

Access via 3G on iPhone.

Redirects quickly to a different domain (too quick for me to see the URL), then re-directs again to ip.prizefun.co.uk

At the top - "Charge my mobile via Payfront Single Click when I enter a competition." (pre-ticked)

And the main content is "Win an iPhone 6"

Doesn't happen every time.

Huw · April 2015

Thanks -- prizefun seems to be the offending one in most cases.

jgrahl · April 2015

I used the site for a little while on an iPhone 5 on the full desktop site, the handheld site with the latest iOS, and I didn't encounter any problems with ads while logged out.

snowhitie · April 2015

I've got this problem on my phone as well. Never realised it was when I was not signed in, I just done a hard reset on my phone so that's the reason I am not signed in.

One banner was about europaleague #weareoneteam
The other one was to buy clothes at jbc. I am using a Sony Xperia, firefox beta, on wifi. I just clicked on my bookmark to go the the site (those were synced with beta so I've still got them)

I've noticed this before and it's quite annoying because it's actually underneath the ' help keep brickset ad-free'. I remember a couple of days ago it was a banner for nappies, I think huggies.

I do remember this happening to me before so not sure how long ago you changed because this was really a good while back. I remember thinking it was ironic and wondering if something was up but since it not came up all the time I let it slide.

Hope you find the culprit!