Any virus issues in SB?

[gypsyjim]

At lunch yesterday I was on ScubaBoard when I suddenly got a notice that the page I was viewing would not open. A few minutes later I suddenly got a popup window from some "Cloud.... " 'antivirus service'. :shocked2:

I immediately shut things down but it was too late, and we are having to have the machine wiped and restored.

My employer runs a pretty aggressive anti virus program on all the machines here, but something on a page I was opening yesterday caused a real problem here. I wish I could remember what thread I was reading, but the problem seems to have originated when I followed a link in a thread to another SB page. I hit no other links, but jumping forums to other SB pages has never caused an issue before this.

At this point we do not really know the source of the virus, but things do point to SB. Am I the only one who has encountered this?

If the issue is within SB I figured you would want to know, and if it is not, that would be nice to know too. At this point my employer wants to ban SB activity completely, which I am seriously trying to avoid.

 

[HowardE]

Without any other information, there's not much that I can do. There are no viruses on ScubaBoard, and we don't have any ads that make popup windows. Any popups or the like would be due to malware already existing on your computer.

 

[gypsyjim]

I would like to believe that, or at least be able to convince my employer of that, but everything points at my 'jumping' from one SB thread to another, threw a page link posted in that thread.

I am going back threw my posts from yesterday trying to recall where I was, but I do jump around a few threads when I am on.

Our system runs a pretty decent antivirus program, and we all avoid clicking unknown links, so this is an unusual problem for us to encounter here, and has my boss pretty angry.

 

[Cave Diver]

Jim, there have been two issues in the past that caused people's anti virus programs to flag pages when the page contained a hotlinked image to an "untrusted site." While the image may be safe, it still gets flagged for an association with the hosting site. There was no infection here on SB, but we ended up removing the image anyway because it generated several user reports that their antivirus program was flagging the page for that association.

And of course if you follow a link or image back to the hosting site, there is a potential for malware issues.

 

[gypsyjim]

OK Howard, I see one other possibility now that I have gone back threw threads I posted in during lunch yesterday. I can not review any threads I simply read, only ones that I actually posted in.

There was one non SB link I did follow: in the "Cozumel Incident 9/4/11" thread I followed a link entitled 'heath on myspace' in post 741.

It is very possible that this was the source of the issues we are now dealing with here at work, and not something in the SB system.

 

[gypsyjim]

Jim, there have been two issues in the past that caused people's anti virus programs to flag pages when the page contained a hotlinked image to an "untrusted site." While the image may be safe, it still gets flagged for an association with the hosting site. There was no infection here on SB, but we ended up removing the image anyway because it generated several user reports that their antivirus program was flagging the page for that association.

And of course if you follow a link or image back to the hosting site, there is a potential for malware issues.

As may be the case here it seems.

 

[HowardE]

OK Howard, I see one other possibility now that I have gone back threw threads I posted in during lunch yesterday. I can not review any threads I simply read, only ones that I actually posted in.

There was one non SB link I did follow: in the "Cozumel Incident 9/4/11" thread I followed a link entitled 'heath on myspace' in post 741.

It is very possible that this was the source of the issues we are now dealing with here at work, and not something in the SB system.

If you have your browsing history enabled, every thread you viewed will be there. If there is a bad link in one of the posts, please report that post, and we'll remove the link. We take this kind of action (posting virus links) seriously, and there may be administrative action against the user if it is believed that the post itself is to be malicious in nature. (there for the purpose of spreading a virus)

 

[gypsyjim]

Will report that post, just in case.

For some reason the store computers do not have browser history enabled, and I am discouraged from making any adjustments. As the entire system crashed and is in the shop being wiped and restored, I could not access that history now anyway, even had it been enabled.

 

[HowardE]

Without viewing that person's myspace page (linked by a reputable member of SB) - I don't think that would necessarily be the source.

Believe me... If there were viruses or other popups on SB, there would be a crapload of posts in site support and emails to our support email address; which there is just this one.

It is unfortunate that you can't retrieve your other browsing history, so that I could help you more.

 

[gypsyjim]

As I said, whatever virus attacked the system resulted in a complete loss of the station I was using here, so we can not trace the history.

I was only browsing SB at the time, and other than reading and posting in various threads here, I can only recall following that one other link, to check on the divers injured in that deep dive on 9/4/11.

I do not track my post count, but in what are probably literally several thousand posts this has been my first problem ever with any virus.