CAUTION - Fake Virus Scanner Advertisement on ATS

Hey ATS,

I wanted to caution you about a pop-up ad you might receive from ATS if you are not logged in when you visit the site. The ad is designed to trick people into thinking they have viruses, and initiates a download for a fake virus scanner called "my personal scanner". This type of advertisement should be illegal.

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I just received a pop-up from ATS that minimizes the browser window, and doesn't allow you to maximize it. It completely closed ATS. The pop-up then claimed I had vulnerabilities on my computer.

Upon closing the pop-up you are redirected to a website that is designed to spoof an official Windows Explorer window, and it pretends to find viruses on your computer. It then spoofs an official Windows Security Alert window with viruses, and then initiates a download for a fake virus scanner.

Here is a screen shot of what it looks like;

As you can see, the website looks exactly like the window you get when you click "My Computer" on Windows XP, but its FAKE.

The offending website/advertisement is called "mypersonalscanner".com without quotes.

DO NOT GO TO THE WEBSITE. Upon going to their website, it activates a REAL threat. My real-time link scanner recognizes it as a "exploit rouge spyware scanner (type 660)".

This advertisement should be banned from ATS. I also think it may cause people to think ATS is hosting spyware, malware, and or viruses. Don't be fooled.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord



[edit on 22-6-2009 by 0nce 0nce]

I got the exact same thing about 5 minutes ago!!! Got really freaked out for a second... Shut my computer down (not that that would actually help if it was real... lol) and then restarted!

Glad to know it's fake!

Still needs to be taken off of the site though!!!

Yeah I was getting the same thing from ats with mozilla. I thought it was something on my end so I started up spybot and ad aware to find it but nada.

Already being spoken about HERE

It also affects MAc believe it or not!

There's a thread about it already.

SO asked members to tell him if it occured after his posts time-stamp. YOUR time stamps are about ab hour after his...bet he's still up to his elbows workin' on it!!!

Originally posted by Djarums
What I did personally was put that site's url into my router's blocked sites list for the time being.

This is a good idea, and will definitely fix the problem.
There are also free plugins for Firefox that stop it.

[edit on 22-6-2009 by Kaytagg]

Yep it just happened to me...............

I tell ya.........as you can see from the number of post I have been making here on ATS lately............I am tired of the BS here on ATS....

The BS from the swine fly thread caused several of us to leave who were connected with contacts in the "know" to start up our on forum...........

I still come here everynow and then.........and just a few minutes ago.........this BS with this fake virus #...........

They refused to monitor the swine flu thread........but they don't mind letting you get scammed by fake virus sites..........

I am sure someone was paid off.......

Lets see how long it takes for them to make this off topic...........

Now thats Bad.
I hope ATS is not making money off this every time someone clicks on the thing,Sure it wont take the powers that be long to get it Removed.
They certainly would not approve of this type of media on this site.

Thanks for the heads up

star for you

I got the same thing. It doesn't like being turned off and will keep trying to open itself. Just the way it is worded says "fake."

Don't let it do anything, just keep closing it.

Click the red X on the upper right of all the windows it opens. Don't click anything else. "X" it all the way out.

USe Task Manager to terminate if that makes you more comfortable.

reply to post by Genfinity


I think we all figured that out.............thanks for the advice

There is a current discussion about this that is 4 pages long and contains comments from ATS Admins regarding what we are doing about this, and what our members can do in the interim to protect themselves.

Please direct your comments to that thread which can be found here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thank you.