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Updated Microsoft has admitted its Windows Live Messenger client displayed banner ads for several days punting an application blacklisted as a security risk. Shortly after Microsoft made the admission, other outlets reported that MSN Groups displayed ads for a separate piece of software widely regarded as rogue.
Redmond has pulled the ads for Errorsafe, a purported security product labeled by legitimate firms as "scareware" designed to frighten users into buying a product that actually impairs internet safety. Redmond has promised to review its advertisement approval process in order to prevent the problem cropping up again.
For a period earlier this week, Errorsafe, which is listed as a security risk alongside related packages such as Winfixer, appeared as a banner ad inside Windows Live Messenger.
Worse still, pop-up ads punting the product were served to users running Windows Live Messenger. These pop-up ads appeared without user interaction. Clicking on the OK or Cancel buttons in this pop-up window would have resulted in an attempt to download a malicious ActiveX control without a user's permission.
In another incident involving rogue software, Microsoft has also apologized after its MSN Groups was caught serving ads hawking SystemDoctor2006, according to APC Mag.
"Now, everything has changed. Users have been put at direct risk through no fault of their own and they can't avoid the MSN banner advertisements when the contact pane is open without using a third party hack that is ethically wrong to use."
Microsoft doesn't seem to monitor its partners policies. There was once a website on msn.com about recipes that was written in PHP. Linux routers being used by Microsoft. If they don't even know others don't use their products, they probably can't tell anything about viruses.
Well, it's not entirely MS' fault, is it? It's a malicious advertiser that posed as a legitimate one. Sometimes you can't tell if someone's up to no good until they've already proven it. Note that I'm not an MS apologist by any means.