A nasty popup, or something!

[W1GUH]

I have no idea where it came from, but last night as I was browsing I got a popup saying malware has been detected and showed an "explorer window" listing the files with nasty stuff in 'em. I looked like a scam and I closed it -- but when I tried that, I got a modal dialogue box saying something like, "Your computer is at risk of crashing, do you wish to continue?" I finally ignored THAT warning and closed everything and then ran a scan on the computer that found no problems.

Don't think anything bad happened, and I'm not even sure that this was a malignancy in the first place -- it coulda just been extremely aggressive marketing of a protection tool. Don't know...didn't stick around long enough to find out. But you can be SURE I won't be going to that site anymore.

Pity - there were some great camel-toes there!

[W5RB]

It's a ploy for one of the "registry cleaners". Download and run the Malwarebytes software from www.malwarebytes.org .

[WØTKX]

Likely scam was detected. A lot of that crap is hiding on personal web pages, or even ones that have not been edited/checked for a while.

Even picture links can do that crap. But scan with Malwarebytes and Avast or AVG after.

Sounds like you bailed in time, good job. :agree:

[kd8dey]

Sounds like a little nasty a friend of mine had. a real pita

[ad4mg]

Malwarebytes usually kills these types of internet boogers, but it must be run in safe mode, using the password protected (yeah, right, everyone leaves the admin password blank on XP, very foolish) administrator account.

With the latest variants of this sort of malware, if you get the popup, you're already infected.

Without bringing back the Linux vs Windows thing, this is one 'feature' of Windows that I really don't miss. For all the Windows 7 users, is that version of Windows any better at resisting these attacks?

[NQ6U]

Part of the problem with XP security is that it's a PITA to run under a non-admin account. On my Macs or Linux machine I always run as a normal user unless I actually need admin privileges, which makes it much harder for anything to sneak in under the radar. I haven't used W7, though, so that may be better now.

[KJ3N]

Part of the problem with XP security is that it's a PITA to run under a non-admin account. On my Macs or Linux machine I always run as a normal user unless I actually need admin privileges, which makes it much harder for anything to sneak in under the radar. I haven't used W7, though, so that may be better now.

"Better" is a relative term.

Under Vista and Win 7 you have UAC (User Access Control) which will ask you to confirm if you want to run certain executable files. Every time you put a software CD or DVD into the drive, it will ask if you want to run the AutoPlay file on the CD or DVD. If you download a file (Firefox for example) and run it, it will ask if you really want to do that. It will not ask you every time you actually run Firefox, once FF is installed.

The problem is, UAC is so fscking annoying, that I'm willing to bet a great many people turn it off, once they figure out where to shut it off. Obviously, this defeats the purpose of UAC and will allow anything to run without asking, so you're back to square one on "security".

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

I have had this "Warning your computer registry is infected" warning, looked at it and said Huh?
It showed a windows dialog, but I am running Linux? something not right with the Mexican. :shifty:

[KJ3N]

something not right with the Mexican. :shifty:

Classic understatement.....

[n6hcm]

Under Vista and Win 7 you have UAC (User Access Control) which will ask you to confirm if you want to run certain executable files.

with win 7 UAC is much better than it was under vista. with vista i had just turned it off (this is for home use--at the office we're still using win xp pro).

[KJ3N]

with win 7 UAC is much better than it was under vista. with vista i had just turned it off (this is for home use--at the office we're still using win xp pro).

It may be "better" under 7 (I'm still test-driving it on this machine with 8GB), but it's still fscking annoying.

[KC2UGV]

It may be "better" under 7 (I'm still test-driving it on this machine with 8GB), but it's still fscking annoying.

More, or less so, than gksudo (kdesudo)?

[KJ3N]

More, or less so, than gksudo (kdesudo)?

Do either of those blank your screen for almost a full second?

[K7SGJ]

Seems a lot of that going on. My wife had just sparked up her computer when she noticed I had a nasty popup and told me to get the virus infected thing away from her box. I said fine, and went to find my laptop to get on the Island. Sheesh

[KC2UGV]

Do either of those blank your screen for almost a full second?

No. I'm asking because I've only used Win 7 (Or Vista) in a cursory fashion (I turned off UAC almost immediately, and now it pops up asking for an admin password), and I only use that for Steam games. So, I had no real basis for comparison, but it seems like gksudo (Albeit, without the near 1 second screen blanking).

[n2ize]

My parents ran into the at problem one day when my Mom was using her laptop computer. It kept on popping up asking her to run a scan and telling her that nasty Windows viruses have been detected and the registry needs cleaning. Only one small problem. She's running Linux on her laptop and there is no Windows registry. She wound up clearing it out by shutting the browser and restarting it.

[KJ3N]

My parents ran into the at problem one day when my Mom was using her laptop computer. It kept on popping up asking her to run a scan and telling her that nasty Windows viruses have been detected and the registry needs cleaning. Only one small problem. She's running Linux on her laptop and there is no Windows registry.

:rofl: