just out of curiosity, can the site go back to the advertisers and tell them to pull their ads until they fix this? I would think there's some understanding that ads cannot provide infected materials to other sites
In theory, yes. But in detail, I don't know. I don't know the particulars of how CS' ad suite is setup.
We need byennie to chime in on that. I sent him a private message.
Hey guys, sorry for the slow reply. I didn't initially see this topic, and am not getting the malware on my end. Unfortunately this has been an ongoing whack-a-mole with all of the ad networks. We don't sell anything direct, so what happens is maybe 0.1% of their inventory turns out bad, and since it's frequently targeted by companies like Google, Facebook, it affects certain users but not others.
I can tell you that right now we only work with two companies: Snack Media, and CleanMedia. The former is a UK agency that specializes in sports content, the latter is a "family friendly" network responsible for the video spot. I try to select companies who will work with us directly (i.e. I have a direct line to report issues) and have a good reputation, but unfortunately at our scale they are almost all reselling from something like Google Ad Exchange as their foundation, which is not a 100% clean source. If we were part of something bigger like SBNation still, we'd have in-house people running all of the ad placements... (or just ignore the forum =)).
I may try another round of mitigation here, and pull some spots. Keep me informed and definitely send me email and/or PMs when you see something. Ad blockers are a good recommendation though I 100% understand the aggravation of having issues in the first place.
A bridge I've tried not to cross for various reasons is selling a premium ad-free experience, because I know it's a big ask to pay for the forum, but I'm always listening if there is a demand.