• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 18, 2010

The surge in malicious advertising attacks, also known as malvertising, is spawning new detection and monitoring services to help advertisers and agencies track and remediate when their ads or brands have been compromised by rogue attacks. Palo Alto, CA-based anti-malware software firm Dasient this morning announced a new service focused exclusively on malvertising attacks. The system, dubbed the Anti-Malvertising Solution, comes as online brand protection developers such as Clickfacts and The Media Trust have stepped up efforts to monitor and thwart malvertising.

Malvertising is a catch-all term used to describe when online ads are used as a vector to spread malicious code, or malware, either by embedding the code into legitimate ads, or by creating and placing fake ads that mimic those of legitimate advertisers.

Dasient claims millions of users have been infected by malvertising, and that the incidence of attacks is growing. Based on its current estimates, Dasient said roughly 1.3 million malicious ads are viewed each day.

Some of the highest profile attacks have occurred via fake ads used to spread malware were bought and placed on blue chip sites such as TheNewYorkTImes.com, Fox.com, Gizmodo, TechCrunch and WhitePages.com.

To date, most of the attacks were uncovered when users complained about infections, but developers such as Dasient, Clickfacts and The Media Trust have developed systems that monitor and alert advertisers, agencies, and publishers about infections before they spread.