Malicious programs: Trojans and viruses whenever I am on ATS/BTS

I do not understand but besides the recent server errors, I have been getting tons of trojans attempting to infiltrate my computer while on ATS/BTS. At least 2 at once if not 4. Fortunately, my protection stops and cleans them before they ground themselves into my computer.

I have Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet security 2007 and MS Vista operating system.

Anyone else getting trojans or viruses?

Many members have been seeing false alarms lately... is it anything like described in this post?

Coincidentally I just found that exact thread. I will read through it to see if my problems are the same and let you know asap.

BTW: I am honored to hear from you SkepticOverlord. Thanks.

reply to post by Unlimitedpossibilities


Nope running Vista and zone alarm nothing gets through here

TO S.O.


Your not looking so good lately... I have a couple bottle of Pusser's Navy Rum




[edit on 20-8-2008 by zorgon]

Still makes me wonder if the client's DNS is being redirected to cause some of these recent issues of malware. That's been an issue again lately.

[edit on 20/8/08 by Misfit]

Originally posted by zorgon
I have a couple bottle of Pusser's Navy Rum

I'm a scotch/bourbon guy... and a snifter of my favorite bourbon, Prichard's, is at my side right now.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Ah! Sorry the only scotch I have is an olde Glenfiddich... came with some skeleton keys from the Isle of Skye

-spit-

I wash my feet with Glenfiddich.


Back on track... the DNS issue may indeed be a problem... there is a DNS hijack exploit in the wild, and systems without the latest patch/exploit can experience all kinds of badness.

Update: I just downloaded firefox and the NoScript add-on. I will see how much of a difference it makes.

BTW: No ads pop up for me when the trojans are detected. Just instant alerts from Trend Micro. I get more red warnings than trojans though vs. trojans come up as blue.

It appears that a recent automated Trend Micro update might be causing the false alarms from the iFrame tag which is used several times on pages of ATS.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
It appears that a recent automated Trend Micro update might be causing the false alarms from the iFrame tag which is used several times on pages of ATS.

Skeptic,

While I would hate to think that any kind of malicious programs, viruses and such would be given to us through ats, these recent and some not so recent virus scares concern me.

Trend Micro has not been the only firewall and or virus scan program that has caught this crap. I mean, someone a few days ago posted this same problem with McAfee.

I am making no assumptions whatsoever but, as many of these threads that are popping up lately, I think it might be safer to be concerned.

just my 2 cents.


Baked

Originally posted by baked
I think it might be safer to be concerned.

We do our own intensive scans of our servers, manually, by people who do nothing else but ensure servers operate with optimum security. Additionally, our input forms have custom fail-safes in place to prevent the injection of malicious code. We do what we can to ensure these issues do not originate from ATS code or content.

I had been getting the same types of errors. Unfortunately, it is a trojan and a virus (2 pieces of malware). I regret that I didn't write down the name of the trojan/virus before I closed the window - if you get the name of it, please post it so I can do some research on what it does. I installed Ad Aware, downloaded the updates, and then scanned after the download. It found and cleaned the virus off my system. Once the virus was gone, I seriously upped my system security. The virus/trojan had disabled my firewall and did who knows what to my system.

The link to Ad Aware is www.lavasoft.com...

I'm also running Trend Micro PC Cillin. Although the software (with updates) found a problem, it didn't find and clean the trojan/virus. It merely generated error messages. IMO that's an indicator the Trend software sees the virus, but doesn't yet have the programming to identify or remove it.

The errors were driving me crazy. I used to work IT, so I kept at it until I found something that would clean it off my system after a manual removal failed. To see portions of the virus, do a search for 46TY65M3*.* It creates files in the Windows/System32 directory and creates entries in the registry. The files are supposed to belong to a search assistant utility, but the utility has been coopted by the virus. The virus rewrites its files to the hard drive after manual removal of the files and deletion of file references from the registry, so there's some add'l component to it that I was unable to track down.

I'm not sure where the virus originated from, but there is a possibility that one of the ATS servers is infected. Might need to run some scans just as a precaution.

I've got a comp with no protection and my computer is starting to spit and hack at me while uttering weird things in a gutteral voice. I think it may be possessed.

reply to post by TH3ON3


That's the virus. I think it grabs bits and pieces of internet ads and plays them on your computer without your permission. My computer was irking up weird voices talking, random popup ads (dang it, with my popup blocker enabled), and various rambling lunacy.

You need to check for the virus.

reply to post by AWingAndASigh


Nah, I was just joking dude...I usually just wipe the hard drive and reload since it gets me out of all that work.

reply to post by TH3ON3


LOL! Lucky you. I hate new viruses that don't have a cleaning utility yet - lots of work to get rid of them.

I used to work IT, but do I EVER work on my computer? Nah...

I know what to do for any type of crash, so who cares if my computer crashes every 2 seconds? (shrug)

Originally posted by Unlimitedpossibilities
Update: I just downloaded firefox and the NoScript add-on. I will see how much of a difference it makes.

Good Man!

You can be guaranteed 4 things after installing Firefox with the Addons.

1. You will have a safer and much faster internet experience.
2. You will wonder why you waited so long to make the change.
3. You will feel sorry for those still using IE.
4. You will NEVER look back!

And your gonna love the secure passwords facility as well as many things unmentioned above. It kills IE!

... yet another punter successfully converted to the religion that is Mozilla!

IRM

[edit on 20/8/08 by InfaRedMan]

If you cannot manually remove them, I have a freeware program called killbox! that removes anything (so far) during system restart.

Next time I will take a screen shot if it happens again.

reply to post by InfaRedMan


LOL. Thanks. I actually went to another thread that you posted in InfaRedMan and took your advice! It is definitely better in many ways but it takes a little while to get used to the NoScript add-on. Plus, the automatic spell check is GREAT. IE will soon be uninstalled.


BTW: 1-4 all are satisfied