Keep getting directed to dodgy sites

[StarlingsEverywhere]

Hi, three times today I’ve clicked on a thread and it’s opened another window, to a dodgy site. The last one was a “100th person to click wins an iPad” type of thing. I’m on an iPad with iOS 11.2. Any ideas?

I’ve been getting the ‘you’re the winner of an iphone’ all weekend it’s driving me nuts
Only on this site

I’m getting Virgin adds. Really not happy - there is no way to close the add, so I keep bombing out.

Maybe if I stop using the site for a week or two, you will sort it out 😡

Still happening @MNHQ. Update please.

Seemed a bit better yesterday, but started again this evening with the virgin adds again, this is getting really silly now.

Thought it was all sorted but has started again now

I’ve ‘won’ three iPhones in the last half hour - iPad on Safari via Virgin Media.

Just got these 2

I’ve got, twice, a red page with a warning of suspect software.

I keep getting pop ups offering me Aldi vouchers , it won’t close and I have to click all the tabs and lose my place . Very annoying ( only happening on Mumsnet )

I’m getting those bloody pop ups too, but I’m also getting it on the DM site. Yes, I have no shame.

Still getting it

As I mentioned up thread, I installed AdGuard (free) on my iPad yesterday and haven’t had a pop up since 😀

Happening here too......very frustrating!

Still happening, please sort it.

I had this constantly on Friday, it was fine yesterday and now it’s back again.

It’s a BT one for me. So irritating.

It is still happening. I have cleared cookies etc. Restarted router. It is still a problem.

Still happening for me as well, worse again today vvvvv irritated now.

It was happening to me Friday , stoped yesterday and is now back again. Will try logging in again but thst didn’t stop it last time. Please update MN

Hi there all,

We're really sorry this is taking so long to sort out, thank you for your patience. We are still looking into it and trying to figure out exactly what the cause of it is. We've tried a few fixes so far but unfortunately it seems nothing has worked.

Hi there all,

Unfortunately, some fraudulent advertising buyers install malicious code and try to bypass the security systems of websites. They target users using random categories, and constantly change these categories which can make it very hard for security teams to find the source.

At Mumsnet we only work with reputable organisations, but in this case we are dealing with well-organised fraudsters, which makes it extremely hard to identify the root cause.

We appreciate all the information you send to us and we use it to help investigate and test out scenarios in an attempt to solve the problem. We are currently talking to Google's Trust and Safety teams to find out more and we'll continue to do our best to avoid these situations.

Let us know if you have any more questions about this and we'll try to answer.

Wow! That’s actually rather scary, that someone can disguise their motivations so well. Thanks for the update, AnyaMumsnet. It appears to have stopped for me, but hopefully that’s not them hiding until you stop looking.

I’m wondering if this is a safe site to use. There have been so many data breaches. Hacks and now this.

@MNHQ why is your site so prone to attacks?

We always recommend users do not click on anything suspicious and alert us immediately. We need to issue to happen on the live site so we can replicate it and kill it, otherwise we wouldn't be able to get to the bottom of it. We have now got a step by step document on what affected users can do to help us find the source, which we'll direct you to if the issue occurs again.

Obviously we can't be sure of every case for sure, but usually, all these ads are trying to do is drive traffic to their websites, to enable them to make more money from ads. So most of the time it's not really anything to worry about - and it's certainly not a hack or anything like that.

We hope this explains a bit further, but let us know if you need anything else.

Sometimes it’s hard not to click on the ad because you can’t get rid of it. Also it was coming up so often it was easy to click on it accidentally.

The only thing that seemed to reset it was turning the whole device off.