Warning Crystal Radio

[Lil Abner]

the piece of scum is trying to get you download a virus scan that is actually virus laden. Even just cliking on the link sets in motion

[Colbyt]

A response like this deserves a bump though most of us do recognize the off topic post are frequently just as you describe this one.

[aemeijers]

Careful using Google image search as well- I was looking for tomorrows's BestBuy flyer, and a promising link tried the old 'your computer is infected' scam on me. Had to dump the browser session to escape unharmed, but how many casual web surfers know how to do that?

-- aem sends...

[David Nebenzahl]

On 12/25/2010 5:43 PM aemeijers spake thus:

You mean you actually clicked on the link?

Otherwise, why would you need to "dump the browser session"? No click, no harm.

[aemeijers]

No, I clicked on the miniature picture on the Google screen- which didn't use to take you straight to the page it came from. It used to just show the harvested .jpg, with an additional button to jump to the web page. Mebbe they had executable code attached to the picture- the PCTools protection suite I have on here is usually rather good about blocking bad websites.

-- aem sends...

[Ed Pawlowski]

? "David Nebenzahl" wrote

You've evidently not run across this yet. You click on what looks to be a credible link and this thing pops up and there is no way out that I've found. I'm not sure that it is really doing anything, or just putting things on the screen, but it is something you'd want to avoid.

[bpuharic]

alt-f4? does that work?

[David Nebenzahl]

On 12/25/2010 8:37 PM Ed Pawlowski spake thus:

No, I have run across such things; I've just never clicked on them.

[Ed Pawlowski]

As stated (but you seem to ignore) you don't have to click on it. It starts from another link that look legit. Thus the browser dump.

[Ed Pawlowski]

That would close the browser so, it probably would work.

[Bob-tx]

It happened to me yesterday. Clicked on a newsgroup item under 'writing'. I was trying to find a group of authors. Anyway, I immediately started getting interrupted by messages to download a virus killer, and they would pop up every few minutes.

I ran Malware, which found the virus and removed it, but now I can't get on with IE. Keep getting message that the connection failed. I haven't thought of what I need to do to get out of this problem. I can use NGs & email fine.

You said you had to dump the browser session. Do you mean you just exited the browser? I am not familiar with your terminology of 'dump'.

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks, Bob-tx

[Colbyt]

Sometimes and sometimes not. Often one must use control/alt/delete, select the browser, usually iexplore.exe and click on end process. This description is for XP since I have never upgraded from that stable OS.

[Ed Pawlowski]

? "Bob-tx" wrote

Yes, I was able to close the browser. I've had good luck running malwarebyte.org program, but I'm not sure how you'd get to it if you cannot run IE. The program is 7.4 MB so maybe you can put in on a flash drive from another computer or I can email it to you if I DL and save it.

[Fat Dumb & Happy]

My neighbor did click on it, and a couple of hours of work and we got his computer back. Malwarebye was the only thing that would find and fix it and I had to boot with safe mode to download it, from either the net or from a USB. I don't remember but we finally got it. First time I've gotten one that far gone back to working without a reformat and clean install.

[willshak]

Lil Abner wrote the following:

Do not open any message where the header is all CAPS. Just mark them read. If you sort the messages in this group by size, you will see that the largest are all CAPS and are spam.. Too bad that my newsreader cannot filter messages that have all CAPS in the headers.

[Bob Villa]

I run the browser in a sandbox.

[Country]

You can make sure your Malware software is updated and run it in safe mode. If nothing else works, you can run the computer's restore program to a point saved just a few days ago when things were running ok.

You also want to make sure you are running the latest version of the browser you are using.

-C-

[Hank]

I've said this before, but I'll say it again.........

I've been messing with computers for 30 years, building, repairing, writing programs. I have NEVER had a virus. I don't run any anti-virus software either. I thought I had a virus once, turned out to be a bad CD-rom.

It seems to me that most problems are NOT viruses as many think, but the operator or a hardware problem.

Computer hard drives are not perfect, they can corrupt files, not necessarily a virus.

I'm not saying there isn't any viral programs out there, All I'm saying is they're not as common as one thinks. Knowing what to do and what not to do is the real answer.

Hank

[Sjouke Burry]

Anytime you have a annoying popup, ctrl/alt/del and kill the browser. Dont click on OK/Yes/NO or "close window" , because that is often enough to install malware.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 12/26/2010 8:56 AM Hank spake thus:

You say you have no antivirus software, and I believe you, but certainly you have a firewall, yes? Because without that, you're definitely going to get infected by malware that arrives over the Internet. I know because my firewall (Sygate, freeware) warns me all the time about various intrusions into my computer, ranging from relatively benign port scans all the way up to malicious attempts to rewrite Windoze system files (which all get refused). So it's not just a matter of not clicking on things, which makes your argument that it's all a matter of operator fault not so convincing.

You need protection. It's a dangerous world out there.