Online Ads Could Become a Phisher's Dream

There's a new type of banner ad that collects personal information and credit card details through the ad itself. And it's a horrible, horrible idea.

Tailgate, a London company, has created this misbegotten monster that's slouching towards your PC to be born. If you click one of these ads for a Navman GPS device (for example), the ad will prompt you for your name, address, e-mail and credit card, and make the purchase without your having to visit another site. On the surface, this could be good for business, since it makes impulse buys that much easier.





But this could also be a great big boon for online criminals. Because even if Tailgate makes the transaction processing for their ads completely secure, these banners would train people to think that it's ok to enter their credit card information into an ad.

And if that happens, you can damn well bet that phishers will try to co-opt the process. We've already seen attack ads on Google and MySpace. If these transactional ads become commonplace, how long do you think it will take before we see fake ads for an online pharmacy, or maybe a $100 iPhone, that exist only to collect credit card numbers?

Amazingly, Techcrunch has a gee-whiz positive post on these banners that says "Tailgate could well be the banner advertising unit of tomorrow." Let's hope that somewhere along the line, someone in the right position with an ounce of sense doesn't let that happen.

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