In 24 hours we have had 4 newbies posting strange things and dodgy links. The fact they are all newbies makes this very suspicious and there must be a connection. I have asked for these to be checked out to see if any connection can be established. I delete any I see and report them and so far all have been banned. However, I'm not on-line all day so I would be very grateful if you could PM me if you see anything suspicious. If it looks highly suspicious (eg with a link) please copy in Cyprussydsafc. Many thanks Ron.
Ron - is this linked to the warning that came up last night re the site hosting malicious content ? And I am aware I have the IT intellect of a wasp, but what is there to be gained from infecting a scoial site like this ? I know hackers will always try getting hold of personal data for bank details etc but what's the upside to hacking a site such as this ?
Massive amount of hits this site gets, if you can get some kind of trojan on the site or linked from the site you may get plenty of victims who could be taken by scams
Could be someone has been banned and has a grudge. Could be members of a competitor. Who knows? Maybe if we could establish a connection it will become clear. Whether or not these are directly responsible for the malware warning I don't know. I do know it was a member (or members) of this site posting links to dodgy sites but no more information has been provided. Is it a coincidence that the warning appeared on the same day as these Newbies appeared and all have been banned? I could be barking up the wrong tree but no point taking any risks.
Not necessarily Grizzly. Not if the culprit is a total you know what. Although I suppose, in that case, spoiling someone else's enjoyment probably is the upside for them.
Won't pretend to understand all of that Nass but what information in here is of value, is it peoples e-mail addresses ?
Not necessarily information that is important, it could be something as simple as spreading a virus that acts as though its a real program (such as a virus scanner) which asks to you pay to secure your PC.
Does anyone get those calls from India saying that they are calling on behalf of Microsoft? "We've been advised that you have troubles with your computer."
Ive posted some suspicious horses to follow...!!! As for the microsoft caller, ive had one of those cyc... Telling me ive got a problem with such n such... just said i would look into it, and put the phone down... didnt believe them...
I got one of those the other week Cyclonic I was laughing at her down the phone and going along with it at the end she went ok we will take your details yes my card number is 47 (not the start of my real card before anyone starts) emmm **** OFF . She was saying Pleaseeeee Sir let me direct you to the files that could be infected
A mate told me that he asked them in a stern voice if they knew who they had called? They quickly hung up when told they were dealing with an Australian Government Security Agency.
The worst one I've come across was the fake security warning saying your computer is infected and listing a load of infections that needed to be sorted urgently. If paraded as Internet Defender and wouldn't let virus scanners run. Had to locate all the files that had been buried in the system and manually remove them. It was a nasty one for anyone that had actually gone as far as running their fake scanner/virus remover. Basically don't go to dodgy sites and don't run any programs that appear out of the blue, especially from unsolicited emails. It's a nasty world out there. If you are a single user, the safest way is to have all your files and safe programs on one computer that is never used to log on to the internet (not even connected to your network) and another computer for internet access. Never transfer anything from the internet connected computer until it has been cleared of viruses. Where work depends on networked computers I suppose you have to rely on the security of the network server, as well as any protection on your own. (Not too well up on networks, as any techie will have noticed).
I've had that nonsense before, some Asian bird claiming she was from Dell telling me my computer was in serious danger, and for £60 they will give me the best anti virus around that will sort it out. I told the woman I had no money and was very poor, but she wasn't having any of it, and was practically begging me to pay it. After a while she passed me over to her boss and he started telling me that my computer would be beyond repair within a few days if I didn't get the anti virus. After half an hour of me insisting I didn't want it, they finally got the message and hung up.
Ron, I got that one. A bit of Googling pointed me in the direction of a free scanner online that could remove it from my computer. Right faff it was though. Is there anyway you can tighten up the registration process - enter a random number or validate an email address?
I noticed some of those but thought it was too risky using a free scanner for that problem, especially as Norton couldn't sort it on the chat line and wanted to put me in touch with a professional who would sort it for £90. Can't remember what the procedure was when I registered. Don't they email you back and you have to activate from the email to register? That's the normal procedure to ensure a valid email address. PS. I thought they used to have a sum you had to get right (eg what is 4+5?). Trouble is it was different sum each time. So (clever) thickies just used to keep typing in the same answer until it was right. I'm joking.
