Reporting a dodgy website.

[Katie_Jennings]

How does one go about reporting a seemingly malicious website? Something my mother tried to access a couple of days ago has resulted in a rather alarming My Computer page (this is in XP) being loaded notifying the detection of 200 or so trojans. This comes with the following message:

Your computer remains infected by threats. They can cause data loss and damage and need to be cured as soon as possible. Return to Personal Antivirus and download it secure to your PC. (sic) Press OK or CANCEL.

Ostensibly there is nothing odd about this site - it provides "free" downloads of printable crosswords, though most things with the word free are usually seem best avoided. She uses the free AVG, but even this
shows the site as acceptable with the message: this page contains no active threats.

Using Task Manager my mum closed the process and shut down her machine. Apparently without hitch as she is able to boot-up successfully tihs morning without any conspicuous problems. I cannot be certain of this as she is about 150 miles away. But it all seems OK.

Thanks for any help.

 

[tim west]

There are many of these scaremongering sites hoping to scare you and then point you to software that will cost you to remove the non existent threats.

just stay clear in future in internet explorer you can notify phising scam sites to microsoft.

 

[chalkywhite]

Hi Katie, best advice i can give is to use either IE8 or better still Firefox 3.5 with NoScript add-in. This will annoy to some degree as you have to authorise each site to display JavaScript pop-ups etc, but the majority of each site's content will be displayed safely.

Does the PC sit behind a router with built-in firewall? (Check the router labels to see). If it does not then use Firewall software such as ZoneAlarm Free edition. Then i always swear by AVG anti-virus, Windows Defender and perhaps Spybot as a fail-safe.

Hope this helps! Tony

 

[empip]

Perhaps something like this may help...
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-personal-antivirus

The 'actual home' of malwareBytes, mentioned at bleepingC above...
http://www.malwarebytes.org/products.php

How to Google for specified words in title. intitle:"Personal Antivirus"
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=intitle:"Personal+Antivirus"&btnG=Search&meta=

A slight change intitle:"Remove Personal Antivirus"
Gets you
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=intitle:"Remove+Personal+Antivirus"&btnG=Search&meta=

Then of course you must research for the best answer - there usually is a best answer.
Click for Google Search syntax dissected

''

 

[macro01]

actually those sites saying that you have a virus are the ones who will put virus on your PC... i use opera browser most of the time because it can block those unwanted pop-ups accurately

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

Sorry, tried to add post to the wrong forum. Delte at your pleasure, Mods. Ta.

 

[Katie_Jennings]

I have been away for a few days but thanks for your help, guys. My mother has been using her laptop seemingly without hitch, so I think she was pretty quick off the mark in dealing with the problem. From what she says there are certainly no signs of anything amiss.

Tim – I have tried to find a link to the MS site that would deal with phishing scams but most references seem to deal with banking issues. If you know of a more suitable link that would be very useful, thanks.

CW - There is no router, just a modem connection. Actually I tried to get her set up with a router about a year ago, but accessing the wireless network connection in XP resulted in the session aborting, so I thought it best to stick with the modem. I believe the network card in the laptop is the source of the problem. She already has IE8 installed and uses AVG, Windows Def, Spybot, Ad-Aware & Avast and runs all of them from time to time.

empip – Thanks a lot for the links. I’ll get one of those installed on her machine next time I visit.

macro01 – Other than this incident mum says she never receives pop-ups on the screen so this is not normally a problem.

Thanks again.

 

[tim west]

Tim – I have tried to find a link to the MS site that would deal with phishing scams but most references seem to deal with banking issues. If you know of a more suitable link that would be very useful, thanks.

It comes up as an icon on the bottom of the page when visiting new sites, if you click it you can then report the site as malicious if you want to, I suppose it then depends on how many votes this site gets before its reported to other users as a site to be avoided.

Some virus checkers have a similar system where the results appear on a google page when you are searching for sites.

 

[Steve]

My mum has had this on her laptop, which sits behind a router, firewall and wireless.

The page loads in a new tab, it is not a popup. It shows about 5 hard drives with 40 or so trojans on each. It only has two partitions, one is hidden, so i knew it was fake.

Funnily enough I did a virus scan after it appeared and it did find 9 real trojans. Using AVG free, but my sister uses the laptop and downloads all sorts.

Also, it keeps getting a "fake" AVG window showing 4 trojans detected. And real popups with webcams etc.

Gonna re-install windoze.