In a report on the New York Times website, the publisher said that its NYTimes.com site initially published what appeared to be legitimate adverts for Vonage but that the adverts started routing users to scamware / malware infected pages late last week.

The malware infections caused popup messages to appear on users' screens, with scamware telling users - incorrectly - that their computers were malware infected and that they needed to purchase fake anti-virus software.

According to a blog item from Graham Cluley, technology consultant with IT security vendor Sophos, the fact that Vonage had advertised on the NYTimes.com portal before meant the paper's managers were comfortable with the 'advertiser' to supply adverts from a third-party company.

A spokesperson said in an online report, meanwhile, that, in the future, NYTimes.com will not allow any advertiser to use unfamiliar third-party vendors.

Marc Frons, chief technology officer of the New York Times, said the confusion about the malware advert's origins meant it took some time for them to shut the malware adverts down.