issue Addthis sharing component looks to produce malicious redirects

[Tech Support]

Our customers report that AddThis component inserts malicious advertising.

The following code was noticed to be put into header and this code is highly possible to leak your traffic:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://z.moatads.com/addthismoatframe568911941483/moatframe.js"></script>

We are planning to remove AddThis component from KVS themes and we recommend you considering doing the same for your projects. You can easily switch off AddThis in Website UI -> Theme settings:

[xvids]

Any Replacements?

[Tech Support]

Not yet. Many our customers said that they have already removed this feature from their sites some time ago. It looks like all these scripts produce additional speed issues without real value.

[davex]

It is very rare for addthis to advertise, with all these years I have never seen this.

 

yes it is true that with the addthis catches the speed is sometimes somewhat slower.

[davex]

I believe that the owner of the website that had that code has been hacked into their website.

 

addthis their codes are never like this: z.moatads.com

It is an advertising company like any other.

 

<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-*********************"></script>

[Tech Support]

No, it is definitely addthis. Just google for addthis + moatads and you will find some similar issues reported by others:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/addthis-and-moatads-com/

 

It is not clear if this is legit or not, but adding 3rd-party scripts to the page is definitely the reason to stop using addthis.

[Mark.snc]

that's right, we got 3 chrome flags about malicious redirects, after some investigations, I noticed one code like the same you mentioned in footer, how did they get into our footer ?

[davex]

No, it is definitely addthis. Just google for addthis + moatads and you will find some similar issues reported by others:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/addthis-and-moatads-com/

 

It is not clear if this is legit or not, but adding 3rd-party scripts to the page is definitely the reason to stop using addthis.

 

ups, thanks for the info again.

[Tech Support]

that's right, we got 3 chrome flags about malicious redirects, after some investigations, I noticed one code like the same you mentioned in footer, how did they get into our footer ?

 

This code is inserted on the fly by addthis component.