Unwanted notifications in browser

[harlan4096]

And simple ways to get them without investments or SMS

When, back in 2015, push notifications were just appearing in browsers, very few people wondered how this tool would be used in the future: once a useful technology made to keep regular readers informed about updates, today it is often used to shell website visitors with unsolicited ads. To achieve that, users are hoaxed into subscribing to notifications, for example, by passing subscription consent off as some other action. The victim ends up subscribed to ad deliveries, while at the same time quite unable to get rid of the annoying messages, being unaware of their source or origin.

Other than ads, downright scam notifications may also be delivered, such as about lottery wins, or offers of money in exchange for completing a survey. All such proposals are usually phishing attacks seeking to coax users to part with their money. We have repeatedly anatomized such cases in our quarterly spam and phishing reports.

From January 1 through September 30, 2019, Kaspersky Lab products have blocked ad and scam notifications sign up and demonstration attempts on the devices of more than 14 million unique users all over the world.

We have observed the highest share of users (of the total number of our product users) hit by unsolicited subscriptions in Algeria (27.2%), Belarus (24.1%), Nepal (23.7%), Kazakhstan (23.6%) and the Philippines (22.2%).

We have also registered an upward trend in the spread of ad and scam subscriptions. Since the turn of the year, the number of users hit by this problem has continued to grow.
...

Continue Reading