Thread: Virus from this site or very rare coincidence?

Originally Posted by Polarys425

Read much? Guess not. I'm not the only person to report this. There is no infection in my computer. I'm not just some computer illiterate smuck, I'm in the computer biz myself. My antivirus has stopped all but one intance that has happened from this site. The browser, antivirus, or whatever anyone is using is irregardless of the fact that there is an ad stream problem here, and obviously no one here gives a s***.

AGAIN, take the info or leave it. I'm done with this.

I don't doubt what you have said, however, there are MANY of us that have been here for years and haven't have one issue.

I never had an issue even BEFORE joining the "pub" and, no members I've recommended to join have reported issues. I think only one has gone "pub" status thus far. (avoiding ads.)

I don't think its too much to ask, however that new members who think they have issues may try posting in a more polite and professional manner. (more like majority of the posts we're all used to reading on this site, which has a GREAT reputation for its help to others, quality of members, content, and safety.)

Polarys425:

Malware getting through ads on the Internet is a huge problem. Even the most reputable web advertising agencies are not immune and occasionally have bad ads slipping through. It is very hard to prevent. It's not as easy as scanning the advertiser's website: most of the ad content these days is dynamic and is generated on the fly. So, the bad guys can start by serving an innocent content, and then switch to malicious content from time to time. And if even the big ad agencies with their huge revenues cannot prevent this, small independent site operators (like this one) are pretty defenseless against such threats.

Having said that, what I find strange and suspicious in your case is that you seem to be having this problem on a regular basis, while thousands of other visitors (most are not pub members and many have similar antivirus software installed) don't seem to have the same problem. Why is that? I see two possible explanations:

1. Your computer might still be compromised. There might still be a hook, e.g. a bad browser plugin that gets activated every time you go to this site. (It could be triggered by particular type of content typical for this site).

2. Google AdSense and other advertising agencies often serve content based on your browsing history. And your browsing history is different from anyone else's on this site. It is very possible that some ad that is served to you (whether it is malicious or simply causes a false positive in your virus scanner), is not served to majority of other site visitors. And that's why others are not seeing the same issue. I recommend you purge your browser history, delete all the cookies and make sure to log out from your Google account if you have one. That should prevent you from getting the same ad over and over again.

Good luck!

Ilya, have you not paid any attention ? It is NOT his fault, it's this site's fault !

Well, I am just trying to help him understand what might be going on.
If not him, then perhaps some other site visitors reading this thread.

With over 40,000 unique visitors / ip's a day a majority of them not Pub Members, I find it hard to believe that there is an issue especially considering no other members are reporting issues nor are any of the services we use to scan the site and server minding anything at all.

I dothink that if it was an issue we would be hearing about it from more people.

The only thing I can think of is that if you are getting hit by something when coming here that it's something targeted to you based on your browsing history or for things you searched for in the past. We do use contextual advertising here so the ads you are seeing are largely based off your browsing and search history, for example I recently search for awards so that I could get our SatelliteGuys Best of 2011 Award made, now when I come to SatelliteGuys when I am not logged in most of the ads I see are for companies that make and sell awards. The same may be happening to you, and this is the ONLY way you are getting hit.

But I do have an idea which might help out please PM me and I will try taking care of it once I get settled into my hotel room I can take care of it for you. If I don't hear from you by then I might be slow answer since I am at CES and away from my computer. (as I type this I am on a plane in Denver waiting to take off again. : )

Sent from my iPad using The SatelliteGuys app!

Damn I'm jealous. I suspect this is going to be the best CES for many years to come. Not just Dish. OLED seems to be hitting the big time.