14 DAY TRIAL // To increase their revenues, advertisers resort to scare tactics delivered through in-page pop-ups on Android to get the user to install specific software, which is known as affiliate marketing.
This type of scheme has been used successfully by malicious actors in the past to deliver malware to the unsuspecting user, or to lure them into tech support scams.
The browsing experience is interrupted by a banner or a pop-up when the mobile device user lands on a certain website, Armando Orozco from Malwarebytes reports.
From what the security researcher observed, the advertisements do not point to malicious software, although this is not to be excluded, but to legitimate apps, such as Dolphin web browser for Android.
“It seems a bit backwards but it’s all about making money, ad developers are just as greedy as malware authors–just not as malicious,” Orozco wrote in a blog post on Friday.
In many cases, the messages are misleading, claiming that the operating system needs to be updated or that the currently used browser has severe issues and should be replaced.
The researcher recommends the Adblock Plus utility to filter the annoying traffic and stop most of these ads from loading.
Should they appear on your Android screen, not interacting with the message would be the best course of action, along with leaving the website that generated it.