Hi all- read the earlier post about people thinking it may be this board they got a virus from. This is not intended to start a panic just a "beware"

This am I clicked on a pm and immediately got a pop up saying I had viruses and trojans etc. along with the pm. it said to click here to check my computer, it looked official and looked like it came from my computer as to format

I did what my dear computer nerd taught me when I had a similar thing happen in 08 -except I fell for the bogus warning and clicked-what a horror as I had to have my whole computer redone. I x'ed out of the board so fast and the pop up disappeared too.

I immediately did 2 in depth scans- all came out clean. I reset my computer to 2 days ago and rescanned just to be sure and I am clean still.

So I do not profess to understand computers but please take heed and never click a virus/trojan warning that you have not initiated yourself. That is how those Antiviruses got spread. When you get such a pop up:
Do a full scan that you begin yourself through your computer safeguard system.

Isn't it a shame that some people are so mean spirited that they try to ruin something for everyone else?

I notice when you do get one of those popups, it looks like it is scanning your computer real fast, and then tells you you have x number of bad things. If you notice when you run a REAL scan, it takes a LONG time to complete. So when you see one that fast, you know it is

"BO-O-O-O-GUS!!!"

Here is some good info on this problem:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/rogue.aspx

Since you aren't downloading anything from this site it probably didn't come from here, but may have piggy-backed in on an email from anyone.

My kids clicked on the pop up and caused us quite a headache. It kept disabling my anti-virus software before I could run the scan.

I was able to go here: http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and use their free program to clear the problem.

It's not really a virus, it's "malware" so it didn't do any permanent damage but sure was a headache and it sure could lead to bigger problems.

Do you mean a PM from the board or an email?
It would have to be a link in a PM that you clicked on that did this. The PM from here itself, would not be infected :wink:

An email is another story... I don't open ANY unless I know for sure who it is from, and I don't click on ANY attachments unless I scan them first :D:D:D

How do you scan an attachment - that's a new one to me.

I can set my antivirus program to scan attachments to my email, but some email accounts automatically scan attachments before downloading them :D:D:D

Most of such adware has a "sleeping" timeframe embedded in it to make it harder to track the source. You won't see a popup the minute your computer gets infected. Instead, you'll start seeing them days or even weeks later.

One of the larger popup companies out there even publicly states that the target machine won't display any of their popups for two weeks after the installation of their adware.

That particular company bundles adware with free games, wallpapers and screen savers. And the reason for the two week delay is to prevent people from putting 2 and 2 together and figuring out just how their computer got infected in the first place.

So if you see such fake antivirus popups while browsing this board (or any other legit site), chances are your computer was already infected with adware some time ago.

In other words, trying to "time" it to visits of specific sites/pages/search keywords/e-mail messages is not going to be very useful in figuring out where the adware comes from.

I have no idea what a virus is and never had one. This tends to worry me though. COuld someone explain in Layman's terms what is happening so we don't fall for it? There is an ad up above this fro a free virus removal scan. Is this legit? Oh mY.............

I had one of those things myself a year or so ago. In my case when I hit the x(my avast thing was screaming about a trojan) the x is programmed to program that thing into your computer.

Irritating.

I would still have a computer nerd check it out. It may have stuck itself in the windows stuff and you need an uber computer nerd to find it.

Or go buy malware bytes and see if it finds it.

No it's not legit.

Avast is a legit firewall and scans against viruses, malware and other assorted stuff.

Get mozilla web browser(free) and use it instead of internet explorer.

Malware bytes is also a good program to have on your computer.

Debbie, a "virus" is a computer program that someone adds to a file and tries to send out to everyone they can. The purpose of the virus is to totally mess up other computer programs. If your computer gets one, it may just re-send itself out to everyone on your email list, or it might also mess things up so badly your computer won't work anymore.

There is also something called, "Malware" that will try to fool you into buying products you don't need. Theh one being discussed makes a screen pop up that says you have a virus and just click "here" to fix it. It then takes you to their website to make you buy their program. Unfortunately, it blocks you from doing anything else until you get rid of it.

To avoid these issues, you can run an internet browser (the program you use to go on the internet) other than Explorer. Safari and Firefox are two popular ones.

But the best thing to do is to not open emails with attachments unless you are expecting something from someone and whatever you do, don't click on that popup if you see it!