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Pop-up virus warning.... advice needed.

Hi Guys,

I've had one of these months, or years ago but managed to take a screen shot of the problem this time. I have searched for posts similar but I decided I wanted to start my own thread incase it was serious; though I'm not sure it's too bad.

While browsing (sorry, can't remember where; it was general) after clicking on the link I got a pop-up. It has the appearance of a normal Safari pop-up with the compass in the top left corner and the option to 'cancel' or 'ok'. Text was as follows;

* http://antimalwareproonlinescanv3.com*

Warning!!! Your computer contains various types of adware and viruses.

Your system requires immediate anti virus scan!
Personal Antivirus can perform fast and free virus
and malicious software scan of your computer.


With this pop-up present I could not close the window so I clicked on 'cancel' and then immediately closed the window. I just ran Virus Barrier x5 which I installed as a bit of a novelty last year, and it came back clear.

I had read on some posts that DNS server codes should be added but again I wanted to check this and I also didn't want to use codes posted for someone else. Are they generic?

Also, should I clean out Safaris cache? A little bit of advice on cleaning the cache would be helpful in general actually. When? Why? etc...

Thank you,

Double-ohh

G4 Powerbook, 15", 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jun 8, 2009 3:50 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jun 8, 2009 4:06 AM

Hi,

You can ignore those pop-up windows. They're simply 'scareware' designed to make people try and click their buttons to download whatever piece of dodgy software they are trying to push. They know no more about what is present on your machine than I do 🙂

Often pressing cancel will still initiate the download as well. Typically they are designed for Windows, but even if they download something, it cannot be installed unless you manually find the file and run it.

I had read on some posts that DNS server codes should be added but again I wanted to check this and I also didn't want to use codes posted for someone else. Are they generic?


Generally, if you are surfing the web fine without issues then you don't need to change your DNS settings. If you are having problems accessing sites, and/or want addition security then the DNS servers provided by [OpenDNS|www.opendns.com] are often recommended. They can recognise many sites as hosting malware and will warn you of that fact.

Also, should I clean out Safaris cache? A little bit of advice on cleaning the cache would be helpful in general actually. When? Why? etc...


Normally, you shouldn't have to. Caching is designed to make your browsing experience faster. So unless your browsing has slowed down significantly or you are experiencing other browsing problems I would not recommend clearing the caches. As the old saying goes, if it isn't broken, don't fix it 😉
4 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jun 8, 2009 4:06 AM in response to double_ohh7

Hi,

You can ignore those pop-up windows. They're simply 'scareware' designed to make people try and click their buttons to download whatever piece of dodgy software they are trying to push. They know no more about what is present on your machine than I do 🙂

Often pressing cancel will still initiate the download as well. Typically they are designed for Windows, but even if they download something, it cannot be installed unless you manually find the file and run it.

I had read on some posts that DNS server codes should be added but again I wanted to check this and I also didn't want to use codes posted for someone else. Are they generic?


Generally, if you are surfing the web fine without issues then you don't need to change your DNS settings. If you are having problems accessing sites, and/or want addition security then the DNS servers provided by [OpenDNS|www.opendns.com] are often recommended. They can recognise many sites as hosting malware and will warn you of that fact.

Also, should I clean out Safaris cache? A little bit of advice on cleaning the cache would be helpful in general actually. When? Why? etc...


Normally, you shouldn't have to. Caching is designed to make your browsing experience faster. So unless your browsing has slowed down significantly or you are experiencing other browsing problems I would not recommend clearing the caches. As the old saying goes, if it isn't broken, don't fix it 😉

Jun 8, 2009 5:08 PM in response to double_ohh7

Hi Double_Ooh,

I just had a similar experience, but I am using FireFox 3.0.10.

The thing that frightened me about the pop-up was that it appeared to be running a scan on my hard drives, and appeared to have found the name of one of my external USB drives.

I didn't think that could be learned through the browser without the user granting permission.

Unfortunately, I closed the window before taking a screen shot, and now I can't seem to get it to come back.

The "antimalwareproonlinescanv3" is the only trail I can seem to find. It appears to have come from www.wheelchairs.com! (I hit the site looking for information on animated GIFs; go figure.)

The only virus reporting site I can find that lists this malware is www.precisesecurity.com. I'm very surprised it's not listed on McAfee yet.

Message was edited by: r_marshall

Pop-up virus warning.... advice needed.

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