Today, Microsoft filed five civil lawsuits, the first of their kind against a nasty phenomenon known as malvertising. That’s the industry term for malicious online advertising. Microsoft works with the other leading providers of online ad platforms to mitigate the threat posed by malvertising, but we’re now taking that effort a step further

The lawsuits allege that individuals using the business names “Soft Solutions,” “Direct Ad,” “qiweroqw.com,” “ITmeter INC.” and “ote2008.info” used malvertisements to distribute malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users. Although we don’t yet know the names of the specific individuals behind these acts, we are filing these cases to help uncover the people responsible and prevent them from continuing their exploits.