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Malware?

RT800RT800 Registered User regular
edited February 2011 in Help / Advice Forum
I often do a google search for "Zero Punctuation" so that I might listen to the humorous rantings of Yatzhee about today's video games. I should probably just save the site to my favorites or memorize the address, but... I don't. I just google it and follow the link. Never had a problem before.

But the other day I hit up google, click the link, and get a brief glimpse of the Zero Punctuation video gallery before I am immediately re-directed to another web site that seems blank. A pop-up appears, warning that my computer may have been infected with 'mal-ware' and that I should 'click here'.

Needless to say, I powered off the computer as quickly as possible without clicking jack shit.

Now my issues are two-fold: I ran a Norton anti-virus scan on my computer which revealed nothing. The anti-virus is bit old, but up-to-date as far as I know. Despite it uncovering no viruses, and everything seeming normal, I'm still kinda paranoid. Should I be?

Secondly: Can I ever watch Zero Punctuation again? It always seemed like a very legit site. I don't know if anyone else experienced this re-direct. Maybe I clicked a bad link on Google? How can I know if it's safe to visit there again?

RT800 on

Posts

  • KyleWPetersonKyleWPeterson Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Malwarebytes for awesome scanning power.

    Windows Security Essentials for live protection.

    Both are free and updated regularly.

    KyleWPeterson on
  • bsjezzbsjezz Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    don't stress too much. the pop-up sounds like it was generated by a webpage to trick you into clicking an executable or allowing a script: if you aborted right away chances are it didn't get the drop on you. it's definitely worth running a scan with malwarebytes just in case, but i doubt you were infected from that

    bsjezz on
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  • altmannaltmann Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    Try using a browser like firefox with no script add-on. Pretty much the best possible protection you can get from actually getting that stuff installed unknowingly. It won't protect you from .exe files that you run on your own system but that doesn't seem like the case here.

    Only allow sites you trust to run scripts and you're golden.

    altmann on
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  • AeytherAeyther Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    altmann wrote: »
    Try using a browser like firefox with no script add-on. Pretty much the best possible protection you can get from actually getting that stuff installed unknowingly. It won't protect you from .exe files that you run on your own system but that doesn't seem like the case here.

    Only allow sites you trust to run scripts and you're golden.

    This :^:

    If you do run firefox, I would suggest Adblock Plus and Flashblock in addition.

    Aeyther on
  • RT800RT800 Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    I tried out Malwarebytes. It seems to agree with Norton that there's nothing wrong. I'll install Firefox tomorrow.

    Thanks for the input everyone. :)

    RT800 on
  • KyleWPetersonKyleWPeterson Registered User regular
    edited February 2011
    You COULD always try running Malwarebytes in Safe Mode...

    KyleWPeterson on
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