Visitors to technology blog Gizmodo are being warned that they could have picked up more than tips about the latest must-have gadget¹.

技术博客Gizmodo的访问者收到警告：他们的电脑存在漏洞，需要下载最新的插件。

40 million people have fallen victim to scareware in last year.

According to security firm Sophos, the website was delivering advertisements "laced with（掺入） malware（恶意软件）" last week.

A statement on the Gizmodo website admits that it was tricked into running Suzuki adverts² which were in fact from hackers³.

It follows a similar problem on the New York Times website.

Last month the New York Times' website was targeted by a gang of hackers who purchased（购买） ad space on the site by posing as internet telephone company, Vonage.

In both cases the adverts served up fake anti-virus software - known as scareware（恐吓软件）.

Scareware attempts to convince users that their computer is infected with viruses and trojans, and tricks them into downloading "remedies（补救，救济）" which are harmful and can be used by criminals to get at information such as credit card details.

Really sorry

Gizmodo gets a huge amount of traffic with more than 3.1 million page views per day.

It has issued an apology to readers.

"I'm really sorry but we had some malware running on our site in ad boxes for a little while last week on Suzuki ads. They somehow fooled our ad sales team through an elaborate（精细的，详尽的） scam.

"It's taken care of now, and only a few people should have been affected⁴, but this isn't something we take lightly as writers, editors and tech geeks," it said in a statement on its site.

Blaming the fact that staff used Linux operating systems on their production machines for "not noticing sooner", it advised concerned users to load some up-to-date antivirus software and "make sure your system is clean".

"By hitting one of the biggest blogs in the world, these hackers are aiming high," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant⁵ for Sophos.

"What is particularly audacious（放肆的，无礼的） about this plot is that the criminals appear to have posed as legitimate⁶（合法的，正当的） representatives of Suzuki in order to plant their dangerous code on Gizmodo's popular website," he added.

According to security firm Symantec more than 40 million people have fallen victim to scareware scams in the past 12 months.

The firm has identified 250 versions of scareware and estimated that criminals can earn more than £750,000 each a year via such scams.