What's with the AV8 Virus thing popping up on ATS pages?

As per subject line.

Never happened before and has happened to me twice on ATS in the past 2 days. Just happened again when I tried to click on the "Ants solving complex maths" thread.

You get a pop-up box with no option other than OK to let it scan or something. I tried closing the box using the 'X" close window button but it started doing/showing something anyway but I closed the page quickly.

My antivirus software is fully up to date.

Final note - I saw another thread about this recently from another member but can't seem to find it now.

Can you guys look into this?

Thanks.

its happened to me a few times. at work on windows it f'ed me up.at home on my mac i was okay. its not cool

reply to post by Riffrafter


That AV8 is confirmed Malware (per my Windows Security Essentials software) and it is a pain if you do not kill it right away. It will infect your system, a friend of mine got it once and did not notice it cause he was on the phone. When he hung up his computer was it's hostage.

Originally posted by mikelee
reply to post by Riffrafter

 

That AV8 is confirmed Malware (per my Windows Security Essentials software) and it is a pain if you do not kill it right away. It will infect your system, a friend of mine got it once and did not notice it cause he was on the phone. When he hung up his computer was it's hostage.

AVG8 is NOT malware! I've run avg for many years on many different win os boxes and never had a problem. Nor have I ever had a popup or warning while reading ats when using a windows box. Granted, avg recently had a bug effecting vista that caused a bit of a prob but that was solved with an update to avg.

I can also tell you that only 3% of computer problems users experience are due to malware or virus infections. 97% of problems are pebkac errors meaning "problem exists between keyboard and chair."

If you have malware on your system it's usually something you picked up elsewhere or from a game download or something. There are numerous free win progz for malware detection and removal on the net. Just google it.

Im in IT, systems admin, web development and system security professionally. I can tell you the last source for info would be micro$oft. It's like referencing "the beast" for the state of the union. Anything micro$oft = worst software ever foisted on the public.

Download Malwarebytes (a free download). Run the update, then run a quick scan. It should quarantine and delete the offensive malware.

Cheers!

The best way to stop these is to cut your internet connection.
Just unplug you DSL or modem cable that stops the virus from feeling data into your computer.

You might want to add a sandbox program to your computer.
downloadsquad.switched.com...
www.sandboxie.com...

One other thing that helps is after you unplug copy and paste there address from the address line of your computer before deleating it and use a add blocker program to block it when it happens again.

reply to post by Emptiness Dancing


It is NOT AVG8. It is a program called AV8 (NOTE NO "G").

I had this happen to me last night on ATS and it was AV8. I have AVG2011. It started loading and the only way I could stop it was to shut down my computer real quick. I thought I might have gotten a virus but I ran AVG and Malwarebytes and neither found anything.

This was the first time anything like this has happened to me on ATS. I also would like to know what is up with it.
Mods?

reply to post by kennylee


I had this a while back and it occurred not only on ATS but on in other areas as well. I actually had to get a different free program that my IT guy recommended. Can't remember it now. Even then I wound up calling either that one or malware bytes and the tech remoted in and put something else on and that took care of it.

I will try to find what was used and if I can I will post it.

Linux or Mac guys...

I prefer not to pay for my software or have viruses if at all possible.

Ubuntu!!

For what its worth, i use Kaspersky. They are just about the best virus lab out there right now, and i am getting nothing.

and i agree...UBUNTU. It is what i use on all my other PC's.

I get viruses all the time. I'm sick of it.
The first thing they do is shut down your security systems.

if AV8 tries to load on my pc and it's coming thru ATS I will block ATS forever.

ATS...get on the ball.......fix it or lose precious traffic



AG

Originally posted by fixer1967
reply to post by Emptiness Dancing

 

It is NOT AVG8. It is a program called AV8 (NOTE NO "G").

ahhhh my bad - reading comprehension (meh) - my apologies.

reply to post by Emptiness Dancing


Try reading and not reacting....I said AV8...NOT AVG8.

reply to post by Emptiness Dancing


No prob...

HA!

I have had to clean that thing off of my computer(s) at least 10 times last year. I didn't realize it was ATS that was infecting me!

Seriously guys?

I hope that it is just a correlation, and not a causation....

(Posted to keep an eye on the thread, sorry I have no constructive advice. At least you know someone has been hassled with this malware for a while )

"AV8" is a well known (since August at least) scam. It's primarily sent through downloads and email attachments and resides, hidden, on your hard drive until you visit a site in your favorites/bookmarks (like ATS) and then launches a pop up offering you worthless Anti virus protection and runs a FAKE scan of your hard drive reporting lots of non existent problems.

We are manually scanning the ads (we have a service that scans each and every ad for malware before they appear on ATS) again to make sure it has not been snuck into one of the ad nets, but, everything I've read about it indicates it's a download that brings it to your hard drive not an ad.

You can read about it here: www.spywarevoid.com... They also have a tool that removes it easily.

If you don't have Malware Protection software on your computer, you really, really should get any one of the many free suites out there. They will stop rogue, scam, programs like AV8 from infecting your machine.

Springer...

Also to add...

I've been running through a manual check of all ads that would appear on ATS via an unprotected PC that allows pop-up windows, and have yet to discover anything that would involve a payload or false-scan pop-up via our ad networks.

As Mark mentioned, these types of nasties are typically received via an email payload (sometimes just viewing a preview of an infected email is all it takes), then site idle and randomly pops-up with web activity which can make it seem as though it's triggered by something on a web page.