Serious Spam Invasion On ATS

This is starting to get ridiculous now...

Every two minutes or so when using Internet Explorer to browse ATS I am getting a popup now from Norton System Doctor, asking me if I wish to check my system for free.

If I press cancel, I still get rerouted to the Norton site, and cannot do anything else but close Internet Explorer entirely and restart to go to ATS.

If I do not restart, Norton tries to analyze my system, even if I cancel out of all popup questions.

Now the weird thing is, the standard popup on ATS used to be a link to Smiley Central, which could be easily closed.

Now it is Norton System Doctor 2006, which basically sucks.

The popup blocker is active, and I have Windows Defender and Antivir all active, and still this sucker comes through like a freight train.

Can ATS please clarify if this is desired behaviour, because this is certainly annoying the urine out of me, and I can imagine other board members too.

Anyone else see this or is it just me?

My thanks.

I am not getting that popup driven down my throat, but I do remember System Doctor 2006 being detected in scans alot recently, and alot of other stuff I never had a problem with before. Not sure if it is ATS related, but as of late I have had alot of problems I never ran into in the past.

Truth4hire, give the Complain button a shot up the top. If will create a thread in a Mod only forum so they can quickly view it and hopefully respond. If they can not do anything right away, the message will get to SO much quicker.

Thanks Chissler, I will try that now...

No Problem.

Hopefully you can find a resolution to this.

If you click the link in my signature about Virus/Spyware help, you can find a few programs that may help fight the battle. I've put up alot of information in that thread that can help members fight off all malicious files.

u2u me if you have any questions. You may need to hit the 20 Post mark first though, not sure if you have.

These ads are not originating from any of the ad networks that serve ads on ATS.

- We're not using pop-ups at the moment (though we may introduce limited pops to guests in the near future)

- We're no longer serving ads capable of spawning pop-ups to members (Flash/Javascript ads).

I haven't seen any such "popup" on ATS and I do spend a considerable amount of time here.

Considering that you're getting it at repeated intervals I'd have to say it's most likely being generated by something on your PC.

Yes, Spyware Doctor 2006 is a known malware.

Go here for removal instructions: Remove System Doctor

Hope this helps.

I had this great big problem where these tabs/windows would keep opening, with the same sort of message as above, and even the cancel button opened more windows of the sameish kind, all wanting me to check my system for free.

So I thought, 'Firefox is better than this,' and sure enough my ad-blocker was out of date. With 3 clicks of my mouse, those ads went from appearing once every 5 minutes to never again.

Moral of the story is, GET FIREFOX!!

It is incredibly better than IE. Don't know about Safari, but firefox kicks IE's butt from here to that ex-planet Pluto.

wtr, I was an IE freak for years and always turned my back on Firefox. Laughed in the face who screamed, GET FIREFOX!.

Then quietly one night when nobody was around, I downloaded it and gave it a shot. It is with deep regret I have to say I have never turned back. The odd popup I did have with IE, are obsolete with Firefox.

To those stubborn few that have not tried Firefox, give it a shot.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yes FireFox fixes this. What bothers me though is that I only get these persistent pop-ups when browsing ATS, I have not seen it on other sites.

Trust me I get around a lot... My system does not have system doctor installed (yet) and it is not Norton as I said (my bad). Haven´t had any Spyware issues for ages since Antivir and Windows Defender -formerly Microsoft Antispyware- (at least a year).

Very strange, I have looked at the removal instructions provided and nothing is there to uninstall. What this looks like to me is that there is a hook somehere on the server side on ATS, but then again SO has told us it is not so I have to accept that and I do.

Will need to look further into this, because it is annoying.
This crashes my Beta version of IE in a flash call btw. FireFox works fine.... Maybe a good reason as any to completely switch to FireFox or Opera.

I could do some serious db-ing but need to update my liberaries for that. Hmm dunno if I´ll go that far.

Again, I can only see this in ATS, but this might be a coincidence because the site uses Flash. PS: I´m running in low bandwith mode fwiw.

Ive been getting this as well for the past couple of days when i have logged onto ATS. Have updated my anti spyware and problem seems to be solved, but was only getting this problem when on ATS.

I also had many pop-ups today, all from the same site.

Now that I wanted to see it, it does not appear...

As for the IE, Firefox debate, my answer is Opera.

I use IE, Firefox and Opera, and I think that the best is Opera.
It has many options to tweak as we like, and the options are well laid out, logical and easy to understand.

All of those pop-ups that I had today I only saw the ones I wanted to because Opera only showed me a small information window saying that it had stoped the pop-up.

And I get less pop-ups with IE 7 Beta 3 with the Google toolbar than with Firefox.


I got it, the pop-ups that have been plaging my day are from:
br.errorsafe.com/download/2006/index.php?aid=valu2002_pt_pt_lng&lid=intl&ax=1&ex=1&ed=2

It appeared when I went to see this thread


At the bottom of the page was this code:

img "http://stats1.reliablestats.com/stats.php?site_id=errorsafe&aid=valu2002_pt_pt_lng_ed2&lid=intl&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.abovetopsecret.com%2Fads%2Fa ts_728_bottom.php&lp=true" width="1" height="1"

I hope this helps.

I remember being attacked 15O times by something after logging into ATS. If I changed my IP address, the attacks stopped. This didn't happen before, so I have a feeling that someone is behind these attacks. My Norton Firewall registered these attacks, as unsuccessful. Still annoying to see it. I guess, you can get on with Norton Personal Firewall, that worked for me, no system halts. Make sure, Live Update did the job.

Now the pop-ups have "learned" how to appear on Opera, or then I changed something without knowing it.

This last pop-up comes from

systemdoctor.com/download/2006/?aid=valu2002&lid=intl&ax=1&ex=1&ed=2

At the bottom of the page they have this code:

img "http://stats1.reliablestats.com/stats.php?site_id=errorsafe&aid=valu2002_pt_pt_lng_ed2&lid=intl&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.abovetopsecret.com%2Fads%2Fa ts_728_bottom.php&lp=true" width="1" height="1"

Not using IE for ATS anymore maybe just supersticious, but with FF I can happily browse without systemdoctor closing my thread window every two minutes... :bnghd:

Other websites seem fine using IE even Beta7. Strange. Farewell to IE, hello FF.

Like Thymus said, try changing your IP.
Unplug your modem (cable, dsl, dial-up) and wait about 2 minutes. If you have a dynamic IP, this takes care of a lot of problems I face.
It seems the hackers have a new slew of tools at their disposal, and not much creativity. Annoying, at best.

OK, I just got a pop up asking if I was a Stud Hammer. Something about finding studs in a wall.
I've also noticed that I'm getting "hammered" with port scans from ad servers, according to my firewall logs.
You'd think these companies that handle these affairs wouldn't want the extra attention from people that might take this as an offense.
If you'll excuse me, I've got some port re-mapping to do, while I close the ads.

I get redirected to system doctor as well its pretty damn annoying,i would have been redirected approx 15 times in the last couple of hours.

And it ONLY happens when i`m at ATS.

With all the latest anti-spyware up to date on IE

Looks like i may have to give fire fox a go for reading ATS.

I've had this problem for well over a week with no success of removing it. The suggested removal tools included Spy Sweeper. Spy Catcher and Spybot: Search & Destroy. All of them picks up one or other infection and removes them, but not one of them are able to remove this Spydoctor infection... Any other suggestions anyone? (Other than Firefox...?)

I don't think it's spyware. The ad servers are convieniently "infected.
I just got an unsolicited scan:

2006/08/28 04:29:35 205.180.86.14:80 (media.fastclick.net) 192.168.x.x:3924 Port 3924 (TCP)

I'm personally in control of our firewall, and made pretty sure that nothing can come through... I'm also 100% sure that I've got all security updates installed.
I'm also the only one with this problem, BUT then again, I'm the only one that has ATS open all the time.

From the symptoms I'd say that it's a local Browser Jacker, but I just can't find it... Nor can anything else... Yet, every now and again, I'm hijacked. Sigh. Damn them!