The New York Times newspaper's website was scammed by a fake company, posing as the voice over IP (VoIP) phone carrier Vonage, into posting an ad that tricked users into thinking their computer had spyware.

Calling the fraud "a nasty surprise," the newspaper apologized to readers in an article and explained the situation.

"Exploiting weaknesses in online ad systems is an increasingly common approach," the paper said, downplaying the incident. "Experts say the problem is likely to get worse."

"Our first instinct was that [the ad came from] a third-party ad network," Times Co. Chief Technology Officer Marc Frons explained. "That is where we looked first and why it took a longer amount of time to shut down. The other issue is that it was sporadic and difficult to reproduce."