Has your computer ever gotten a virus from a news site?

[LuvOrlando]

Has your computer ever gotten a virus from a news site?

In all my years of visiting new sites every day, which has been pretty much the first thing I do in the AM since September 11, I have never ever ever gotten any sort of virus from visiting a news source. I have gotten virus' from e-mails, and from clicking on pop ups to close them when I should have used the bottom bar. I have known of people who got them from questionable web-sites. But I have never heard on anyone I have ever known getting a virus from an online newspaper article. What on earth are they talking about? More make believe Gremlins I think... where is Bugs Bunny when you need him, remember "Falling Hare"?

 

[FireDancer]

I haven't but the NY Times had a lil problem last September. With served ads, iFrames, cross site scripting exploits, and Java Script running everywhere you can get a virus from legitimate sites.

That is why I use Firefox plug-ins that block all ads, block all scripts by default so I can only whitelist first party scripts on pages I choose, and blocks cross-site scripting.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Sounds like they had to click on the pop up even with the Times, I learned to never click on pop-ups. If there is no way to navigate out of somewhere you don't want to be just close it and start over. If someone wants to get in to sabotage a site through advertisers there is little that can be done other than to avoid engaging the advertisers, but to think the Times as a news source itself had anything to do with it isn't correct. The Times was never the problem, the actual news pages were never the problem. Anytime a person engages with advertisers they are opening a one way door.

 

[surfgirl]

my dh and i both had nasty malware recently - not exactly the same one, but similar problem. When he was at the office, having the tech guy fix it, there was a line up of people waiting for the exact same thing. The common thread was a local news website.

No, we did not click on pop-ups.

send me a pm and I'll tell you the name.

 

[johnnymo99]

My uncle got hit with the fake Antivirus software exploit from the NY Times website last September. Took hours on the phone with him to get that cleared up.

 

[golfgal]

No but we got a notice at work that sites like 411.com and yellowbook.com are infected and they have blocked those from our computers.

 

[JerseyJanice]

I got the Antivirus Pro 2010 malware thing last week, and I'm pretty sure it came from the People of Walmart site.

If you have McAfee, you can go to their site and download their Virtual Technician. After it finds and disables the malware, you have to download something else to fix your .exe files.

 

[LuvOrlando]

What better way to manipulate people's behavior that to make them feel threatened?