Virus?

[PeeVixen30]

I'm new to this board and I don't want to piss anyone off... however... I feel the need to warn or point out something.
I had spent all day removing a very nasty trojan from my laptop. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but it may have been from this board. I SO HOPE NOT! Because, I'm actually enjoy this board... not for the pics, but the community of it... hence that's why I have posting here a lot lately. 

Well, I've had no issue with trojans or viruses for years. And I have many good programs installed for defeating bugs... tiresome, because it does take all day to run each program, going through registry, and all that stuff to get rid of all the nasty bits added to a system. NOW, it's true that I'm a bit of a pervert and I have been browsing pics elsewhere too. It could be just coincidence that all of my anti-virus and malware programs went screaming, as soon as I clicked a few pics on this board. But, in case it's not, I wanted to let everyone know to be careful. I've seen postings here of people complaining their computers went down... could also be an coincidence too. Or my own paranoia?

Though... I'm too chicken to test it out again, so I will not be viewing the pics here. Even though, they are really neat. It was a close call for my laptop, but now it's bug free. I'd like to keep it that way too. Just letting the powers-that-be know, just in case. 

[Serika]

Can you tell me which picture set of your virus alarm? I'll download and scan it on my end, if i find a trojan in it i will delete the pic.

[PeeVixen30]

Yikes... I didn't bother to write down which... but I remember it was a series of Catgirls... I think. I looked through many of them, before my anti-virus went off, so I'm confused at which thread started it.
And sad to say... I just game to this board to post, after hours of my laptop being fine... and instantly after I had posted, the browser hijack bug came back. Not the nasty trojan with the nasty viruses that took forever to get rid of, but the annoying hijacking one. I'm going to try to remove it again and come back later, in a few days.... to make sure it's not just an issue on my end. I don't want to blame this forum at all. I like it and want I to stay!!!

[Serika]

Hmm, okay. I scanned every pic in the catgirl thread with AdAware (it scans viruses and trojans too) and it didn't detect anything. I guess we'll have to wait until Duce comes on, he would be able to find out if there's something wrong with the forum.

You say this time it went off without looking at any pics? It sounds like your antivirus isn't completely removing the problem. You could try a different one, http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ is a free web based scanner that works well.

[PeeVixen30]

Oops... sorry. False alarm on that hijack one. It's not back... just a annoying pop-up from some web-community. Sorry... I'm all jittery from all of the real issues of yesterday. It was scary to be alerted that my laptop has a trojan, two viruses, and a browser hijack combo.  I panicked and didn't think to remember which pics I was viewing, when I got the alert. Sorry... I know that's useless in helping. 

But I'm really not sure if it came from this board or the other new porn site I had stumbled on, yesterday. As I was looking at both at the same time (yes, I was being greedy), and I closed down that site and decided that the pics here were better! But then, as i was browsing the pics here, that's when I got the alarm. But, it could have been from the other site, which I don't plan on viewing ever again. But, I'm not sure of that either. I hope it's not this board though!

And yes, I have AdAware, SpyBot, Malewarebytes, and AVG. I haven't heard of the one you've mentioned but I may take a look at that one too! I'm friends with geeky IT guys, so they always help me with this kind of stuff. And also send me virus-free porn links too... it's only when I go looking for links on my own (like yesterday) that I find myself in trouble. 

[Ranpalan]

Although there have been cases of an image format (some MS clip-art one, as far as I remember) being able to execute arbitrary code, it is highly unlikely that it was an image that contained the trojan. As far as I know, the more common image standards (.png, .jpg, .gif, .bmp) do not expect any of the image to be executed, meaning that for the malware in the image to be executed, it needs to exploit a bug in your viewer. The malware must thus target a specific viewer (although targeting the library is also possible, but libraries tend to be better-written than applications), which could happen, but is relatively unlikely, and this is the kind of exploit that is patched almost immediately.

((At this point, someone is probably going to point out that Windows tends to hide the file extension and automatically choose what program to run, meaning people might think it was an image; as far as I understood, the images were viewed with a browser, which excludes this possibility, and anyone who falls for such a fake image should probably just take it as a lesson, anyway.))

Thus, rather than checking the images, it would make more sense to check the website. If someone hacked his way in, it is probably going to be on all (gallery) pages. There's probably no need to blame yourself for not remembering which one it was.

Finally, I wouldn't be surprised if the trojan would stay dormant for a while, or at least only be spotted some time after it became active. This is mostly speculation, however; I haven't gotten around to experimenting with malware, and haven't had an anti-virus for a while.

[PeeVixen30]

Ah, thanks Ranpalan for explaining! Though, I only understood half of the explanation. Heehee. What can I say, I'm more of an video gaming nerd than an IT one.  :D

However, I thought that it might have been a trojan dormant too, which decided to trigger while I was browsing this site! This is why I keep repeating myself, that it may just be an coincidence or my own paranoia... because it could have been a bug that I picked up for the new site or some other new site I stopped by (had pee videos on that one) this weekend. But, I wanted to say something here anyway, just in case it did in fact start from this site. Not for my own sake, but for everyone else here, because you guys seem awesome and I didn't want anyone to lose their stuff. 

But thanks, for saying that it's not my fault and all, for not remembering which post I was viewing. I still feel awful for not stopping to write it down, as I was too busy freaking out and screaming, "OMG! My laptop! My laptop!"  A typical girl response... yet, I am still ashamed.

[Serika]

as I was too busy freaking out and screaming, "OMG! My laptop! My laptop!"  A typical girl response... yet, I am still ashamed.

I think that goes for almost everybody. At least, whenever something goes wrong on my end i put my RAGE face on.

Hope your computer stays clean this time. Let me just say that Firefox with Javascript turned off is great for not picking up viruses, even when you land on an infected page you should still be okay.

[Ranpalan]

It's unlikely the trojan was waiting for you to browse a particular site. There's no benefit to it, and getting it to work is far more complicated than a simple timer would be.

Let me just say that Firefox with Javascript turned off is great for not picking up viruses, even when you land on an infected page you should still be okay.

This times a thousand and twenty four, although I would advise NoScript above simply turning off Javascript entirely (and you'll still be vulnerable on video sites, as you need to allow it to watch the video). Doubly a good thing if NoScript can block HTML5, because that is likely to add some more vulnerabilities.

[PeeVixen30]

Yep, I'm still bug free, for five days now. Whew...
Still not sure where the viruses came from, though. 
But thanks for the tips! I do EVERYTHING with FireFox, ever since I discovered how fast it goes compared to Internet Explorer.
But.... nope, I go without javascript. Like Ranpalan pointed out, I need it for videos. And not to mention a few java-gaming sites.

But hopefully, the extra firewall program I downloaded should be worth something. I hope...

[Ranpalan]

The extra firewall will do absolutely nothing to help against most infections you can get from websurfing (if you'd run only it as root/admin, and the rest of the things without, it could perhaps block outgoing connections from malware you may have, but I expect most smart malware to be able to circumvent it). It can help against incoming connections, but chances are that you're behind a router, and are thus almost entirely protected against those, anyway.

[PeeVixen30]

Yeah... I'm drawing a blank at the moment... 
I can't remember if I'm on a router or not. I'm running my laptop on wi-fi. I guess, the main PC of the house is on a router, though I don't own that desktop. It belongs to my housemates. I'm just bumming free internet from the house, via a wireless card.

But still no virus pop-ups, no alerts, for many days now. I may sniff around those photos here again, soon. 

Thanks for the advice though. You guys are awesome. 

[Ranpalan]

If you're on a router, you're either a masochist or doing something horribly wrong. Chances are, whatever is sending the WiFi is a router at the same time. If the desktop is connected via a router, chances are that the laptop is, too. If it isn't, again, you're doing things wrong.

[PeeVixen30]

Yeah... IT nerd talk. You've lost me at "router". 
Forgive me, I'm just a simple girl who uses the internet to read/send emails, play video games, and view porn on. The inner working of how I get on the internet, I have no freaking clue about. It's amazing that I can turn this thing off and on. 

EDIT: Ooh! I checked! Linksys is indeed a router. So yay! 

[PeeVixen30]

Bad news... A few minutes after I had wrote the reply, the same trojan came back, which includes a whole host of malware and browser hacking goodies. And it's the same damn trojan, that kept hitting me, since I first wrote this post. Now, I'm totally convinced that it's this board is the cource of where I got this virus from, in the first place. And I'll tell you why.. For three weeks, I did not go to any new porn sites or galleries, only sticking with my usual sites... which, I will point out, these are old sites that I have used for three or more years without incident. And for the last three weeks, I've had no problem with those site and my virus checker did not start screaming. I'm pretty sure, the trojan was gone. I find it very hard to believe that it stayed silent and undetected for three weeks, only to become active again at the exact moment I logged onto this board and posted a reply about routers.
Even now I am sure that I will get an alert from McAfee, as soon as I finish this one last post.

What I mean is, I don't believe in coincidences too well... or fate... or things like that. I believe there is a bug embedded into this particular forum somewhere. Maybe hidden in it's advertisement banners? Do you have advertisement banners here? I never bothered to look. Maybe you do, maybe not... I'm not angry or blaming anyone directly for my trojan woes... I actually like this board and wish I could stay on it. But, there's no way I'm risking my laptop for one forum. No matter how neat the photos are here. So... this is really an goodbye. 

Though, I did enjoy the conversations here. And sharing about my fetish. And the catty-banter about routers. Take care, you guys.