WARNING! DO NOT visit piratebay!

[|iR|Focalor]

I use the paid version of AVG AntiVirus. I got the bright idea to search for torrents on piratebay tonight. When I typed in the address, AVG redirected me to a warning page. I clicked to ignore it and continue to the site anyway. Apparently they have ads on their site that exploit flash to add some gremlins your registry and install this cute little av.exe that will annoy the living dogshit out of you with tray icon popups that are Windows Security Update impostors warning you that you have about 30 different viruses, trojans, worms, keyloggers, etc etc. It calls itself "XP Guardian 2010" and tries to trick you into purchasing the full version of it so that you can remove these viruses it supposedly finds. And if you're thinking you can just click "ignore" or something and go on about your business... wrong. Like I said, it annoys the piss out of you with popup warnings every 20 seconds or so.

Praise Allah for BadBrent. He directed me to this helpful page, and I was able to remove this garbage. I was under the impression that AVG was top notch and was an excellent all-purpose program. Apparently not.

[QwazyWabbit]

I was under the impression that AVG was top notch and was an excellent all-purpose program. Apparently not.

Well, you were warned. They can't stop you from shooting yourself in the foot if you truly want to.

[quadz]

Yes, those ad-injected Flash-exploits are evil.  Users of the "grooveshark" music site are reporting similar problems.

I highly recommend using the NoScript plugin with Firefox.

It allows you to specify on-the-fly which sites you trust and which you don't (either temporarily or permanently), and blocks any/all scripts from the untrusted ones.

The great thing is in cases like (for example) piratebay, one could tell NoScript that thepiratebay.org is trusted.  But, the cool part is, the Flash ads displayed on piratebay pages would be loading from alternate advertising domains, which you have NOT told NoScript to trust.  So the upshot is, one can still use a site like (for example) grooveshark.com or thepiratebay.org, WHILE still blocking all the scripts from advertising sites that are trying to display stuff on their pages.

(I made the mistake last week of visiting grooveshark in IE8, and got hit with the same Flash-exploit you mention... however once I saw the pop-up, I went to Task Manager and did Kill Process Tree on iexplore.exe before clicking anything... it seems to have saved me from being infected... I hope.)

When I typed in the address, AVG redirected me to a warning page. I clicked to ignore it.
... I was under the impression that AVG was top notch and was an excellent all-purpose program. Apparently not.

Well.  I'm semi-impressed it at least warned you.

Once the system becomes infected, it can be extremely difficult for anti-virus progams to detect.

For example, read about this rootkit that's "in the wild and it's quickly spreading without being intercepted and detected by almost anyone."

http://www.prevx.com/blog/139/Tdss-rootkit-silently-owns-the-net.html


Regards,

[|iR|Focalor]

Well, you were warned.

Mmmmm. Yes. Insightful.

[Slayer :D]

For example, read about this rootkit that's "in the wild and it's quickly spreading without being intercepted and detected by almost anyone."

http://www.prevx.com/blog/139/Tdss-rootkit-silently-owns-the-net.html

Actually, a pay-for antivirus like McAfee can almost always detect any virus out in the wild.

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_252858.htm

[peewee_RotA]

I thought that flash player 10 eliminated that exploit?

I remember freaking out about it at some point last year because flash is cross platform and cross browser meaning that it's a delivery method that potentially affects EVERYONE.


Yet another thing that Adobe botched after taking flash over. 

[|iR|Focalor]

Funny thing is, when I started my machine up yesterday, Adobe Flash popped up telling me an update was available to fix potential exploits.

[peewee_RotA]

Funny thing is, when I started my machine up yesterday, Adobe Flash popped up telling me an update was available to fix potential exploits.

From what I've seen, Adobe 9's updater no longer works properly. I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling manually on all of my machines.

[ToRcH]

The best lil program i found that was FREE.. NOT TRIAL... AND WORKS!!!

here you go http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

you can take avg and 

 have a nice day 

[QwazyWabbit]

The only thing I don't like about MSSE is the real-time file system protection is s-l-o-w.
It also seems to interact with Windows Defender. Defender now complains every few days that you haven't done a scan. It used to be automatic. I've even made sure MSSE and WD run on different schedules but it doesn't matter.

[paradisel0st]

For example, read about this rootkit that's "in the wild and it's quickly spreading without being intercepted and detected by almost anyone."

http://www.prevx.com/blog/139/Tdss-rootkit-silently-owns-the-net.html

Actually, a pay-for antivirus like McAfee can almost always detect any virus out in the wild.

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_252858.htm

McAfee IMO is one of the worst antivirus programs around . I always preferred to use Kaspersky or one of the other ones that rank significantly higher on tests than your typical McAfee, Norton, etc.

[Slayer :D]

paradisl0st, don't pretend I said stuff I didnt.

[|iR|Focalor]

I don't think that was the objective. I think he added his reply before the last quote tag instead of after it.

[paradisel0st]

Definitely not my objective   

[d4m4g3r]

Well considering pirate bay has gone to crap, it's bound to be going this way as many other torrent sites, i personally do not use torrents no more, but if i do, there are a good few trackers still around, if you need any links, pm me, as quads says earlier, mozilla's no script keeps my system out of harms way, and i only allow on sites where i know it is a valid site, illegal torrent sites?? no chance, nothing runs there and if it has to, then i will find another source, as for avg, or any other virii checker, they are just a deterent so to speak, can never keep all out in my personal experience