ad Virus?

Got this message, today, via AVG, Screen-shotted for reference.

reply to post by AutumnalDusk


The "HTTP REFERRER" in your alert is not a valid URL on ATS. This is typical of a dormant piece of malware on your computer, that is initiated or "awakened" as the result of web browsing activity.

Originally posted by MissCoyote
noticed the same thing my norton did the same
s&f wonder if skeptic knows?

You use Norton? Norton is a virus. I repair computers for a partial living. Every PC that comes here with Norton installed has a virus. I even call it "the Norton virus." I install Microsoft Security Essentials for them, after I erase the HDD to rid it of Norton, which is impossible to un-install completely. As for my own custom computer, I wouldn't rum Windows on it if you paid me to. I run Fedora 15 KDE 64 bit. Never see a pop-up again, never get a virus, and extremely hard to hack, with it's encrypted drive and partitions. Take a hint, un-install Norton (if you can, a good un-install program may help. Then install Microsoft Security Essentials. You can get it from Windows update, or from the Microsoft downloads page, or from C-Net. I have been installing this on customer's computers for over two years now, over 50 PCs, and not a one has come back with a virus. It also bolsters your weak Windows firewall.

For what it is worth:

On Saturday, I launched Firefox, which is set set to load the tabs from previous session, ATS being one of those.

As it loaded, I had an Avast! pop-up warning listing the abovetopsecret.com thread url as the threat (I do not recall which-- something on manned space flight or faith is likely. I believe it mentioned loading a frame on that page.

The warning included a link to report it as a "false positive." The page loaded as normal.

As I moved the pointer to click on details of the warning, the pop-up went away.

Looking at Avast! history, it show shows NO such warning occurred.

My speculation...

Firefox sometimes asks me to allow or disallow the ATS pages to load or redirect to something-- an ad in one of the frames. My guess is that I had allowed it the night before, and so it was the result of starting a new session and Avast! did not like the skipping the permission-to-load part being skipped, or it did not like the new ad in the frame.

Well i thought it was just me, my computer got infected twice last month on ATS, so i cleaned hard drive and put both linux and windows. Now everytime i come to ATS i use Linux ona guest account. And i do not use firefox to come to ATS because i noticed that the Malware would activate on opening firefox.

One thing you could do would be to

1. install greasemonkey on firefox.
2. Do not use an administrator account, ever! unless when updating system
3. Try using IE9 until someone publishes its security risks.
4. be careful when using adobe flash or PDF, in fact remove the pdf plugin from the browser

reply to post by LiveEquation

my computer got infected twice last month on ATS,

I highly doubt you got infected by anything on ATS. Think about it, if there was a virus here, how many Windows users would get it?