About
“Congratulations! You Won!” ads are ads that appear on various websites. Ads usually contain a message that the user has won a prize and by clicking the ad box, you will receive your prize. The ads would link to a malicious website that gives the user some form of malware and/or adware virus. These ads have been found on multiple occasions by many Internet users, and thus has sort of a following behind it with many parodies spawned from it.
Origin
The exact origins of these malicious ads aren’t known. The earliest known “claim prizes” ads circulating around the early 2000s when most home users had the internet either by 56K modems or early DSL connections. The content of these ads are much of the same as you would see today, usually consisting of a Windows XP border with the user being an annual visitor (ie: YOUARETHE 999,999TH VISITOR TO THISSITE!!!) Some ads had sound while others had flashing text and borders; sometimes both. Here is an example:
Spread
As these ads became more and more common, users were found on multiple PC help sites asking how to remove the adware caused by one of these ads. Many people began to experience more ads popping up randomly during visits to even harmless sites due to the malware downloaded. This caused these attacks to become even more common. Most of these ads were randomly generated through Congratulations-you-won.claimprizenow.com
On YouTube, there are some parodies of a particular adware pop up (shown in the picture above). A male voiceover saying “Congratulations, You Won!” on a repeated loop. This one by far is the most popular and has been used in these parody videos.
The initial spread of these parodies started circulating around 2013-2014 and have since been parodied more and more.
Various Examples
