Pornhub and YouPorn sites hit by malware attacks, as porn sites look to become more secure
Porn websites have long been one of the shadiest parts of the internet — but some are looking to clean up their act
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Many of the world’s biggest pornsites, including Pornhub and YouPorn, have been hit by an attack that left them sending malware to their visitors — in a now fairly example of top porn sites being insecure.
A third-party advertising provider was giving visitors suspect pieces of code that then gave users malware. Since the code was sneaked in through an advertising network, the two sites didn’t actually have any role in providing it themselves, though it could have hit anyone visiting the site.
The problems didn’t last long, but the two sites together get 800 million visitors per month, and so the attacks could have a huge impact.
Some other sites including xHamster were hit by a different attack last week. That site received almost half a billion monthly visits.
But attacks against the high-profile porn sites — which have perhaps the shadiest reputation on the internet — are relatively uncommon.
“During the past several months, high profile malvertising attacks against top adult sites have been sparse,” writes Malwarebytes. “This makes what we have seen during the past couple of weeks very unusual but also impactful given the sheer volume of traffic these sites receive.”
Porn websites have long not had as much incentive to be secure as other sites, since they are illicit and little talked about. Many remain fairly risky — but sites like Pornhub and YouPorn attract a huge amount of visitors and appear to be gradually transforming themselves into more professional, if still largely secret, parts of the internet.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments