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Author Topic: Can just visiting a website foul up your computer? Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-14-2011 10:41 PM                        So, I was looking at the internets on my work PC today (which has MalWareBytes installed) and up pops their little info box saying "MalwareBytes has blocked access to the potentially malicious website 000.00.000.000." (I don't remember the actual numbers.) Well I've seen this a thousand times, don't know if it's always blocking the same site, but I was real curious what that site was, so I typed those numbers into my "other" work PC -- the one that has every kind of antivirus known to man on it, not to mention an expensive service contract -- and it immediately popped up with a box saying I was the "Montana winner" and to "Click OK to create your account." And, the hard drive started to churn like it was saving files. And of course there was no way out of the site except to click the OK. So, I immediately just turned the computer off and rebooted without clicking. After rebooting it seemed to work fine, was able to surf the net normally (so far at least), but I'm just wondering....did I do any damage? Is it possible to damage a machine by just going to a site? And why didn't the ultra-protected computer stop me from going to that site?  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 06-14-2011 10:56 PM                        Anti-virus and so on is a catch-up game; by its very nature you're always chasing the tail lights of the newest Windows exploit (or Adobe exploit, etc.) Why do you think that stuff is being continuously updated? As a Windows user, you're taking the chance of being the lucky winner of the latest-and-greatest, before your aftermarket security of choice knows about it. And there are a lot of very smart people working on the next big thing in malware.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 06-14-2011 11:05 PM                     I'm no computer geek but from what I have learned if it is a website you are not familiar with, did not sign up for or are suspicious of get out of there.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-15-2011 12:27 AM                        Short answer, sure it can, especially if you are lured to a site that is bogus and made to look like a legit site, which is the favorite hacker ploy. How can going to Film-Tech be harmful. Well, if someone has copied the pages down to the most minute detail and you think you are safe, you are had. Trick is to see that stuff coming, especially if you are asked to click on a URL link -- that can take you anyplace. Go there yourself to the URL that you KNOW is legit, never from an email link. The fact is, once you are connected to the internet, you are vulnerable, more or less depending how good your anti-virus software is, how good your firewall is and how vigilant you are in keeping all this stuff updated (MaleWareBytes, btw, is a very good app). Of course not every time anti-maleware returns a "blocking" message means that it's blocking something that's actually dangerous or just something it thinks is "suspicious" activity. Even Microsoft sending updated information can be seen as potentially dangerous. All anti-ware have to walk the fine line between stopping stuff you want and need, thus making you go mad, and catching the pig turds out there who are constantly looking to do evil, either by steal stuff from you or just doing stuff to annoy the shit out of you for the fun of it. One of the things I have been doing now for quite awhile is to stop ALL those convenient things that keep ports open to the outside world like the Weather app, HP updates, Adobe updates, etc. Any of those little apps that let a site have access to your system have the potential of letting hackers do the same. I have also put a shortcut to the Ethernet Connection function Enable/Disable toggle on my Desktop so that when I am working on things that don't require an internet connection (which I found is MOST of the time -- you'd be surprised how much you can do off=-line), I just click on the icon and Disable the internet connection. No matter how clever the hackers are, if you are not connected to the internet, there is no stronger anti-virus firewall than that. When I want to go back on line, it's a click away. I never leave my computer open to the internet for no good reason; before I used to leave it on and connect to the internet sometimes days at a time....not good; it's like leaving the door to your house unlocked all the time. Now I either turn it off completely or Disable the internet connection.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 06-15-2011 02:49 AM                        NAT is not a firewall, but I recommend that everyone (especially folks running Windows) never connect their computer directly to their modem. Always use a router, even if you have only one computer. Many routers also have a reasonably decent firewall built in, and routers are cheap.  |  IP: Logged Greg Anderson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 766 From: Ogden Valley, Utah Registered: Nov 1999 posted 06-15-2011 09:02 AM                        The answer is yes. Sometimes you have to click on their pop-up window to "activate" their malicious software but sometimes your computer is infected just by landing on a web page.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 06-15-2011 09:12 AM                        You did the right thing by quickly shutting down without clicking anything. As long as your anti-malware is scanning your system regularly and everything seems fine, you're probably okay.  |  IP: Logged Mark Lensenmayer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1605 From: Upper Arlington, OH Registered: Sep 1999 posted 06-15-2011 11:25 AM                     Just to be safe, I would suggest running a full disc scan from MALWAREBYTES. Be sure to get the latest updates...that program updates frequently. I agree that you did the right thing by just shutting down before the thing hopefully could take hold. You probably hit one of those sites that does a fake disc scan and then wants to sell you a program to fix all of the errors. These are getting very common and have even popped up in Mac land.  |  IP: Logged Edward Havens Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 614 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Mar 2008 posted 06-15-2011 11:35 AM                     quote: Mike Blakesley And of course there was no way out of the site except to click the OK. Couldn't you have exited the browser completely without clicking OK?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-15-2011 12:02 PM                        Ed - I tried that and the "x" was disabled.  |  IP: Logged Pete Lawrence Expert Film Handler Posts: 192 From: Middleburg, PA Registered: Aug 1999 posted 06-15-2011 01:44 PM                     They are trying to force you to interact with the pop-up window. One way to get around that is to hold CTRL and ALT and press the DELETE key. The old Microsoft 'Three Finger Salute'. That used to do a reboot. In current versions of Windows it will allow you to bring up Task Manager and from there you can kill the browser in a couple of clicks or key strokes. Not as traumatic as a forced power off.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-15-2011 02:06 PM                        We use a program here at the office called "Sandboxie", and it basically isolates your web browser from all of the rest of your computer. We run both Internet Explorer and Mozilla from within the Sand Box, and it really does a good job keeping the crap out of our computers. if you can't find that, I do what Pete suggested and shot down the program via Task Manager.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 06-15-2011 02:39 PM                     Ya, I got caught as well on my laptop. My AV didn't catch anything and my desktop was locked shut with an ad, ironically, to capture malware .. and I couldn't close it or get rid of it. It had definitely controlled everything where I couldn't click on anything on the desktop-it would highlight but would not activate when click on the icons. Even when I tried to do an external boot using USB or CD drive, I was refused entry. I might have found something else, but at the time, was rather frustrated and used the "recovery" section of my HD to wipe the HD clean and start over .. Learned a serious lesson - back up files on a routine basis for I lost tonnage due to that freeze. -monte  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-15-2011 04:21 PM                     One thing that has served me pretty well is to use an off-brand browser...one like "Opera." Nobody writes nasties for it. Sure, it does not work on all sites but those are probably sites I'd rather not be on anyway so it is a natural filter. So with using Opera, AVG (anti virus), IO bit's ASC, firewall set on max...I haven't picked up any bugs. -Steve  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-15-2011 10:05 PM                        quote: Pete Lawrence They are trying to force you to interact with the pop-up window. One way to get around that is to hold CTRL and ALT and press the DELETE key I tried that too and it would not work either. The whole thing was completely unresponsive to anything, probably unless I clicked on that OK in the middle and then it would have been trouble city, I'm guessing. Anyway, I did as suggested above and ran the full scan from MalWareBytes and it did turn up one infected item. I forget the full name but it started with "HiJack" so there's a pretty good chance that's the thing that tried to get me. So I think I'm out of the woods on this one. Thanks all for the replies and advice.  |  IP: Logged

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