weird malware message

chromer · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 2:32 am Post subject: weird malware message

Admins,

I have alerts popping up in Chrome and Firefox from a Mac when I reach c-brats.com. Safari (which I am on now) doesn't get the message.

Da Nag · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 2:45 am Post subject:

The warning was legitimate, but the problem was fixed within an hour of it being discovered.

Unfortunately, the warnings can persist for 12-24 hours after the problem has been fixed. Hopefully, things will be better by morning.

Stan Major · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:32 am Post subject:

I had also gotten that malware warning. Glad it is fixed. Thanks

Captains Cat · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 8:24 am Post subject:

Bill, could one of our recent Trolls have done this, or does it come from somewhere else?

Charlie

Da Nag · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 9:43 am Post subject:

No idea, Charlie. Even if I could track them down, nothing would come of knowing the responsible party.

Just a big game of whack-a-mole...they find a bug, exploit it, I remove it. Fortunately we've tools in place to provide early warning, so they've yet to have anything in place for more than an hour.

Joni Lynn · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 9:58 am Post subject:

My avast has been giving me the warning "threat has been detected" on the C Brat site for the last 3 weeks and continues including two minutes ago. Will this eventually go away for me also?
Thanks
Paul

Da Nag · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 10:33 am Post subject:

I've no idea, Paul. Who knows what Avast is reporting on, but as we discussed last week, warnings from PC antivirus software for web sites are notoriously unreliable. I've never seen a warning from one for the C-Brats that was accurate, so I pay very little attention to them.

Running Chrome, Firefox or Safari and keeping it up to date is your best defense against web sites serving up malware, and warnings they display when visiting sites are typically legitimate. The short version why this is better - all current versions of these browsers use Google Safe Browsing technology, which is far superior to any standalone antivirus solution when it comes to reporting on dangerous web sites. In addition to providing the most comprehensive, accurate and timely warnings to users of these browsers, the technology that finds these web site exploits also reports them to the responsible web site owners.

This is why I've been able to kill these things off so fast...not because of any particular talent on my end. I simply get an email the minute Google notices these exploits, and when a site owner is subscribed to Google's webmaster tools (I am), they can go there and read a detailed report that pinpoints exactly where the problem is.

More details here, if anyone wishes to read up on it.

Joni Lynn · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:05 am Post subject:

Thanks Bill, for your response.
I'm quite sure it's no coincidence that when investigating the details of the alert, Avast tries to sell me an upgrade to the service to which I now subscribe. The alert always indicates a threat has been detected, not that I've actually had a file infected. And multiple system scans seem to prove that out. I was hoping that the annoying message would eventually go away from some magical fix on your part, or that it would just die on it's own accord. In either case, I'm not too anxious about it at this point, but if it continues much longer I'll try to seriously do something about it. In any event, thanks for your information. I appreciate it.
Paul

BrentB · Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 1:00 pm Post subject:

At home, I run AVG free anti virus,Malwarebytes Pro (paid) and Firefox on a XP box.
Periodically AVG asks to upgrade to a paid version but I decline