Malware on Computer

carlamay · Post by **carlamay** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:16 am

OOOPPPPSSS - it is the Finch Information Center that is giving me fits as to drug ads! So sorry - this forum is great and easy to navigate.

A message from your moderators: These posts were split off from a topic about Finch Codes which had been posted in the Species forum. Some of the posts were about malware on their computers, and so they were split off to their own thread. Hope it is not too confusing for everyone.

cindy · Post by **cindy** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:20 am

You to...this happened to me to.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:43 am

carlamay wrote: OOOPPPPSSS - it is the Finch Information Center that is giving me fits as to drug ads! So sorry - this forum is great and easy to navigate.

cindy wrote: You to...this happened to me to.

It happened to me too about 6 months ago. Found out it was from me opening a website (for downloading movies) and they inserted all the ads/garbage when I clicked into the Finch Forum (yes, right here). I had to delete/remove the program from my computer and all the ads disappeared.

wilkifam · Post by **wilkifam** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:15 am

Tried it with Firefox and a different wireless connection and it worked. Apparently the government is blocking the site, so I can't get it from my work connection.

Awesome, am so happy I finally got in!

Lori

carlamay · Post by **carlamay** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:01 pm

I can tell you difinatively that it has a lot to do with Internet Explorer (and maybe other search engines)and the way it "reads" the site. AOL had control of my computer for 1 hour and Geeks on Site had it for 13 hours trying to get around it!! I told them to forget it as Google Chrome goes right in - was scared that they would screw up more than they fixed if they got to rewriting IE as they suggested!

debbie276 · Post by **debbie276** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:04 pm

That's weird, it just times out without loading?

carlamay · Post by **carlamay** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:16 pm

Not on mine...I get Viagra or Cialis or antibotic ads and the body of the ad is just jumbled up words.

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:22 pm

Can you provide links to a sample of specific URLs you visit where you see spam ads?

carlamay · Post by **carlamay** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:35 pm

http://www.finchinfo.com/article_submission_form.php

Just go into I.E., then to the Finch Information Center. It will look normal. Choose a sub topic and up pops "buy Cialis" or such.

Interesting that my Kaspersky super duper anti virus, spyware and everything else just blocked me from entering "finchinformationcenter.com" from my address bar as a Trojan virus. It even sounded an alert - first for that! never tried to access except from link on this site.

carlamay · Post by **carlamay** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:38 pm

Crystal - this just came up as well

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/jpoarch/public_html/finchinformationcenter.com/index.php:1) in /home/jpoarch/public_html/finchinformationcenter.com/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 865

cindy · Post by **cindy** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:45 pm

Crystal, this has been happening to me for months, there were sections of the FIC I could not pull up because they were viagra pages, vitamin pages, etc. I wrote the moderators to see if they saw what I saw and they could not at the time and it was thought to be something within my computer.

My computer was hacked shortly after that and new programs and protections were put in place. I was surprised to see with all the bells and whistles added onto my computer that it showed up a few times, I was able to get into certain sections without issue and others not.

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:48 pm

I have used IE to go to finchinfo.com (as well as to the article submission page you linked to), and I do not see any of the ads of which you speak, even when I click around.

Please be aware that the URL for my website is NOT finchinformationcenter.com - that IS a malicious site. My site (FIC) is finchinfo.com

My hunch is that if you are seeing ads on finchinfo.com, they are not actually part of the FIC (I never put any ads on there, and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to actually access the code to insert any into the actual FIC--although if you provide a link that shows malicious code inserted into the actual FIC, I'll be sure to fix it).

More likely what is happening is that you may have malware/spyware softwares that get downloaded onto your computer when you visit a malicious site that installs a script onto your computer and/or you are trying to access a malicious URL. The scripts may only run from certain browsers (the browser may be infected) which is why you may see ads if you use IE but not if you use Chrome as your browser. From then on, whenever you visit other website(s) (you may notice them pop up or become inserted into other text) you'll see ads/spam. Even though you have some software already installed for this purpose, I would highly recommend that you run several more (different) anti-spyware/malware program on your computer to see if you can clean up any viruses/malicious software that may be on your personal computer that your current antivirus may not have been programmed yet to detect/remove.

Some of my favorites include:
http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php (ad aware free)
http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/ (malwarebytes free)
http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html (superantispyware free)
http://www.brightfort.com/spywareblaster.html (spywareblaster free)

You may need to run more than one anti-spamware/spyware program to get all the spam off your computer.

But still provide any & all links to the FIC that appear infected to you so that I can investigate further.

Thanks :0)

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:00 pm

Crystal wrote: More likely what is happening is that you may have malware/spyware softwares that get downloaded onto your computer when you visit a malicious site that installs a script onto your computer and/or you are trying to access a malicious URL. The scripts may only run from certain browsers (the browser may be infected) which is why you may see ads if you use IE but not if you use Chrome as your browser. From then on, whenever you visit other website(s) (you may notice them pop up or become inserted into other text) you'll see ads/spam. Even though you have some software already installed for this purpose, I would highly recommend that you run several more (different) anti-spyware/malware program on your computer to see if you can clean up any viruses/malicious software that may be on your personal computer that your current antivirus may not have been programmed yet to detect/remove.

You explained it much better than I did.

But mine was a program I had downloaded on to my computer to enable me to view movies online - that program was inserting ads and pop ups all through the Finch Forum... until I uninstalled that program. Now I never see another ad imbedded here.

cindy · Post by **cindy** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:11 pm

Crystal, this has been happening to me for months, there were sections of the FIC I could not pull up because they were viagra pages, vitamin pages, etc. I wrote the moderators to see if they saw what I saw and they could not at the time and it was thought to be something within my computer.

My computer was hacked shortly after that and new programs and protections by an IT friend of my husband's. Protections and spyware are in each area on the computer plus an overall one, all were put in place and are actively working, took two months to fix.

I was surprised to see with all the bells and whistles added onto my computer that it showed up a few times, I was able to get into certain sections without issue and others not. It has not happened in a while, the pages were white with a blue banner border. Each time we ran a scan and it cleared.

Something may have gotten past what you have in place and embedded itself there. I can tell you shortly after finding it for the first time prior and alerting the moderators it was about a week when the Trojan took hold of my computer. Some Trojan's are like little time bomb's planted and set to go off at a later time and capture your computer. They act as malware protection and only let you get back into the computer to a point then alerts your you need to buy the Malware protection packet to go further...what it is is a guy somewhere with a pay pal account waiting to scam you out of your money. Make sure you have ample security protection on your computer to prevent this.

If all the sudden you get little messages flying across your scene that look professional do not "X" out or answer anything...sometimes no means yes and you will allow the trojan to take hold. Best thing to do is control, alt, delete at the same time.

Post by **Sally** » Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:26 pm

For what it's worth, I use Internet Explorer, which opens immediately to yahoo, as that is my home page. When I type www.finchinfo.com, takes me there with no problem. I surfed through the site, opening many subforums. I had no problems whatsoever, no ads, no jumbles, everything normal. This is why I think it is something in each person's computer, not the FIC website.

I do know that you have to be careful what you type in an address. My sister-in-law once wanted the White House website. Can't remember now what she typed in, but she came up with a pornographic site instead. And for ages after that, she was getting spam pornographic emails. She had to change her email address--I think that was all it took. These spammers and hackers try to get you by using a similar address to a popular one, and once you open it, they've got you.

FINCHforum