UPDATE: Ads Turned Off Until Further Notice

[Betterthanmost]

When I read the title, I first thought it was Adalius Thomas (I call him AD) who had been turned away until further notice.

Anyway, I don't have any virus/malware/trojan etc though I use windows and no antivirus. I have my register organized uniquely and I check it everyday to make sure all is well.

 

[Mossachusetts]

Since the ad companies seem to have no regard for their clients and still can't seem to prevent malware from running, I have turned off ALL ads until further notice. If you experience any pop ups, etc. from this point on - scan your computer with anti-malware software and remove it:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

This program is incredibly effective in removing this nonsense. Please add any further reports to this thread or the one in the help forum. An e-mail is going to follow this, so please disregard if you've read this notice.

Ian

Malwarebytes is a great piece of software, been using it for a while.

 

[Angry Man]

Just ran both Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware on my box to only find a few harmless cookies. I hope anyone who got nailed with malware from this does recover tho. Do these ad companies really think by doing crap like this is going to help them in the long run? Really? All it does is make me more glad that my web browser Opera pretty much blocks most of these ads anyways.

 

[PatsFan24]

Thursday night I got nailed with Malware on my work computer. The computer has the malbyte on it but it still got infected, and when I tried to run the malbyte the virus would not let me. I had to turn off the computer and then I could get on it and run it. I would highly recomend that everyone download the anit-malware program even if you have another anti-virus program or have not been hit with it. It is effective. I also have Norton but I still got Malware.

 

[Chevy]

I've been using Avast Home edition for some time now, and it is outstanding at blocking drive-by installs. Couple that with Firefox and AdBlocker and I really don't worry much about infections. An active, effective first line of defense is the key.

 

[tuckeverlasting]

I've been using Avast Home edition for some time now, and it is outstanding at blocking drive-by installs. Couple that with Firefox and AdBlocker and I really don't worry much about infections. An active, effective first line of defense is the key.

i have all that and still got it.

 

[JoeSixPat]

As I said I'm not sure I got infected from here - there's a LOT of malware making the rounds these days and the folks that invent it are getting VERY smart

One in particular loads a fake Anti-Virus system - and usually disables existing software like Norton, McAfee, AVG - and also turns off your system restore and won't let you enter safe mode.

They want you to "buy" their software which probably does fix the problem seeing as they invented it - but of course you shouldn't do so.

This article gives some background but I don't endorse their "fix" - having not tried it. It does detail how the computer browsers are hijacked, downloads - especially of anti-malware programs - are prevented etc...

How To Uninstall/Remove Antivirus Live Virus Removal Guide – SoftSailor

In the end if SuperAnti-Spyware doesn't at least give you enough of a temporary respite to get McAfee, or other programs running again you'll be needing to have your hard drive removed and "cleaned" as the malware is in the registry and can't be cleaned when the operating system is running. That's not a technically demanding issue for most computer shops - just a pain in the ass.

With so much other junk on my comptuer bogging it down I actually went the extra step of backing up all files and programs, reinstalling my OS and starting fresh.

That actually was a pretty smart thing to do as I think I'll get more life out of this computer as it is. But thanks again for Ian for addressing this. I have a feeling his is not the only site that's spreading the infection by far

Sounds like a lot of people I know I have picked this up via Facebook too... again, no one doing anything or downloading anything or running an exe program - just a Trojan that takes over a computer and wreaks havoc.

 

[Dragda]

I paid for Symantec Endpoint Protection v 11. It's not perfect, but it blocks all these things.

I didn't pick anything up here, though. I don't click add links any more. I used to just to get Ian the click revenue. I'm glad I stopped! If a site has malware on it, I never return. Profootballtalk generated an alert on my system in 2005. I haven't gone back. One of the other posters here tried to get them to take action, but the site admin was extremely arrogant saying we'd be back because there is no other site like his on the internet. I haven't been back and haven't missed it.

 

[PatsChamp88]

I paid for Symantec Endpoint Protection v 11. It's not perfect, but it blocks all these things.

I didn't pick anything up here, though. I don't click add links any more. I used to just to get Ian the click revenue. I'm glad I stopped! If a site has malware on it, I never return. Profootballtalk generated an alert on my system in 2005. I haven't gone back. One of the other posters here tried to get them to take action, but the site admin was extremely arrogant saying we'd be back because there is no other site like his on the internet. I haven't been back and haven't missed it.

Never had any problems ever with PFT and I have been visiting it almost everyday for years..

 

[Ian]

It's not the ad companies doing it maliciously, it's the fact these people are buying ad space, putting in their ad which is reviewed and then later approved - and then they change it to the infected ads after they're all up and running.

As I said in another thread it's happening with several of the ad networks lately - as the Seattle Times and NY Times among others were hit with it. But the fact they're still not catching them after they were removed the first time just defies logic.

They won't be running again until this is resolved, and I'll just have to figure something else out in the meantime. But as I said the most important thing is for everyone to feel good about being here again.

Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[TrueBeliever]

However with that said I'm going to donate because I know not having ad-revenue is going to make maintaining the site even more expensive.

Me too!

 

[TrueBeliever]

I also want to thank Ian for this. I haven't been on the site much because the adware got into my PC at work, so much so that IS had to send a guy over to install a new freakin' hard drive. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed they don't feel the need to do a lot of checking on the old one...) Ever since then I haven't been checking the site from work, which this year has been where I do most of my football talking.

In fairness, IS said they had been getting a lot of complaints about this, so I'm sure PatsFans wasn't the only place where this is happening.

Also, I'm with Michael - if you don't want to worry about this stuff, switch to a Mac. A couple years ago I needed to upgrade my PC and my brother all but pleaded with me to go Mac instead. One of the best decisions I ever made.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Also, I'm with Michael - if you don't want to worry about this stuff, switch to a Mac. A couple years ago I needed to upgrade my PC and my brother all but pleaded with me to go Mac instead. One of the best decisions I ever made.

I'm not sure Macs are inherently immune to trojans and other attacks - its just that they're utilized so much less - same with Linux. (I don't know what the current figures are but last time I checked 85% of computers were PCs, with the remainin 15% split between Macs and Linux)

So most malicious hackers are going to target the 85%.

If 85% of the online population used Macs you can be sure that the Mac OS would be the prime target for these clowns.

 

[Michael]

I'm not sure Macs are inherently immune to trojans and other attacks - its just that they're utilized so much less - same with Linux. (I don't know what the current figures are but last time I checked 85% of computers were PCs, with the remainin 15% split between Macs and Linux)

So most malicious hackers are going to target the 85%.

If 85% of the online population used Macs you can be sure that the Mac OS would be the prime target for these clowns.

That has nothing to do with how Macs are securer. To put it very simply. Windows has to allow software root access. You'll never get a virus or a trojan (if there were any) on a Mac without the person with admin privileges using his password to put it on OS X.

 

[Boston Jay]

Anyone running NoScript on Firefox not have a problem with the site?

At work, I had this issue pop up using IE, but at home I haven't had any problems browsing here.

 

[Michael]

Anyone running NoScript on Firefox not have a problem with the site?

At work, I had this issue pop up using IE, but at home I haven't had any problems browsing here.

Firefox isn't my default browser but I definitely use no script and adblock plus with FF. At home and at work. Could do without the almost daily updates to no script though.

 

[TrueBeliever]

I'm not sure Macs are inherently immune to trojans and other attacks

I didn't say they were. But it is a heckuva lot harder for that stuff to get into a Mac than a PC.

This is how my bro explained it to me - Microsoft has made a lot of progress on blocking viruses, spyware, etc., but at the end of the day their foundation is still like a house built on sand. There's only so much you can do.

 

[emoney_33]

I'm not sure Macs are inherently immune to trojans and other attacks - its just that they're utilized so much less - same with Linux. (I don't know what the current figures are but last time I checked 85% of computers were PCs, with the remainin 15% split between Macs and Linux)

So most malicious hackers are going to target the 85%.

If 85% of the online population used Macs you can be sure that the Mac OS would be the prime target for these clowns.

This is a fallacy pumped by the Windows backers. Any *nix based system (Mac is BSD, which is *nix based) is inherently more secure than Windows. Linux runs some of the world's most powerful and important computers. Linux has large usage in the server market.

Many linux distros use central repositories and package managers for software rather than random places all over the internet which also makes it easy for any user to remain free of security issues.

The market share for Windows vs. other OS is NOT the main reason why Windows has such a large amount of viruses and malware. I hear this argument all the time that Windows is just targeted more, but it's simply false. You just can't do to *nix based systems what you can do to Windows.

 

[Ian]

Anyway, getting this back on topic - I've spoken to both companies who are investigating. I've told them both they will not run again until they're clean so we'll wait and see. Judging by some other forums I frequent this is becoming a big problem with all the networks, so it appears joining another won't safely solve the issue.

So I'll keep you updated, and thanks for all the emails with your kind words and understanding - it's much appreciated

Ian

Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[buile]

Are the ads still off? I think I ~just~ got hit with something, and the only other website open that might do anything is yahoo mail.

My taskbar went all funky, explorer is hung, and shortcuts aren't working right on the desktop. Got a couple windows defender dialogs asking that I send info about a couple files to them, and I found a suspicious entry in my "Run" registry entry:

"notepad" rundll32.exe C:\Windows\system32\notepad.dll,_IWMPEvents@0