Adult media giant Aylo has blocked access to many of its websites, including PornHub, to visitors from Montana and North Caroline as new age verifications laws go into effect.
This move also impacts other adult sites owned by the company, including Tube8, RedTube, and Brazzers.
As of January 1st, new age verification laws went into effect in Montana and North Carolina that require adult websites to verify the age of visitors from those states.
Under these new laws, failure to use reasonable age verification services could cause the company to be liable to lawsuits from individuals.
An amendment to North Carolina's House Bill 8 also contains similar language, warning that parents could bring a civil action against the companies.
Similar age verification bills were adopted in Utah, Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas over the past year, with a federal judge later striking down Texas' bill.
Visiting Aylo sites from one of these states now display a video with adult film star Cherie DeVille reading an enclosed statement from Aylo.
These laws have been shown to push people in impacted states to purchase VPNs to bypass restrictions by adult sites.
The R Street think tank says this could cause adult sites to block VPN traffic as they could still be liable under state laws.
This could lead users to switch to less-known, and likely riskier, VPN products that are not as well detected but may bring additional risk.
Last month, fake Chrome VPN browser extensions were found installed 1.5 million times to hijack users' search results with affiliate links.
Threat actors are also known to use fake VPN applications to push information-stealing malware and mobile backdoors, putting the user's accounts at risk.
This Cyber News was published on www.bleepingcomputer.com. Publication date: Wed, 03 Jan 2024 17:55:16 +0000