Malvertising hits The New York Times

It's every Web surfer's pet peeve: those annoying ads that pop up claiming your computer has a virus. They block you from working in the browser and are impossible to get rid of short of shutting down the program. They are the types of pop-ups associated with lower-quality Web sites, which is why it's so surprising that The New York Times (NYT) is warning readers that its site has been hijacked by such ads -- unauthorized, of course.

Hackers broke into the newspaper's banner feed over the weekend, causing some readers of the Gray Lady's site to see ads telling them their systems were infected, according to online tech publication The Register.