BADVERTISMENTS! Beware of Bogus Popups – performanceoptimizer.com

I read a lot of current events news and tech articles and about 4 or 5 times in the least month, I’ve had popups that seem to take over Firefox. I call them badvertisements. I believe it is related to an Adobe Flash vulnerability. The unusual aspect of this is that it is happening on good, legitimate sites, like USAtoday.com (WindowsSecrets.com article).

Here are the popups I received:

This shows up at the bottom right of the screen and does strange things to Firefox:

The page at http://performanceoptimizer.com says: NOTICE: Errors in your PC can cause data loss, hardware or software failure and performance fall. Install PerformanceOptimizer to fix errors, monitor changes and maintain PC stability!

Once I closed that this page appeared in Firefox (click to view larger image):

This page appears like it is trying to trick Vista users into thinking it is a Vista window.

Once I closed that tab, this popup appeared:

The page at http://performanceoptimizer.com says: Your computer performance is still at low level! Your PC performance and stability can be injured now. It is strongly recommended to optimize your PC performance!

Then, after closing that window, this popup appeared:

The page at http://performanceoptimizer.com says: PerformanceOptimizer will now boost your PC performance. Please select “RUN” or “OPEN” when prompted to start the installation. This file has been digitally signed and independently certified as 100% free of viruses, adware and spyware.

Each time, I’ve been successful in closing all the popups (WITH THE TOP RIGHT RED X) and pages and leaving without infection. DO NOT INSTALL ANYTHING THESE WINDOWS ARE YOU TO!  If you are not protected against viruses or malware, I recommend home users to install AVG 8 Free.

After I had this happen a few times, I went to Adobe’s website to make sure I had the most recent Flash version, I suggest you do the same.

As I learn more, I will post it here.

Also:

• Wired article about this issue.
• Security alert from Websence.
• Another article from Adland.
• Technical info from Spyware Sucks blog