RedsZone Malware Attack Discussion

[Boss-Hog]

Originally Posted by Mario-Rijo

Anyone experience any malware/virus issues as of late? I tried to log in here from another PC last night and believe I may have gotten some kind of virus just from starting to type my log on. It wouldn't allow me to finish typing it and then I had this fake (i'm assuming) window/alert pop up and couldn't close it so I hit the scan button attached to said alert and the next thing I know this thing is shutting down this PC due to "lack of hard drive space" or something along those lines (this after the scan took place). I eventually get the PC back up but now my desktop icons and programs are inaccessible (not even visible). Unfortunately it wasn't my PC and could be a big problem for me, anyone know of anything?

Also Macafee seemed to make note of something at that time as well.

Our host ran a scan and could not find any infected files. With regards to the quoted post, they wanted to know this:

Could you please specify in which URL you faced the issue ? If possible could you please get back to us with the exact steps(URL and login details) to recreate the issue at our end.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by Boss-Hog

Our host ran a scan and could not find any infected files. With regards to the quoted post, they wanted to know this:

Could you please specify in which URL you faced the issue ? If possible could you please get back to us with the exact steps(URL and login details) to recreate the issue at our end.

I don't the exact URL, I mean I typed what I normally would www.redszone.com and then started to type in my screen name, got to about Mar and then it would lock up and I couldn't enter any further letters. I was thinking though that it's very possible that they haven't updated certain things as of late since technically we aren't supposed to need them updated very often because we don't really use them (because we aren't supposed to be on the 'net) like Adobe Flash player and if it was something in the Ads that would/could explain it right?

[texasdave]

The same exact thing happened to me at work on Friday night. Was logging on to Redszone to check out the game thread when all computer-like heck broke loose. Powered off the computer and snuck away from that terminal quietly. I have Mozilla Firefox at home and have had no ill effects. Much to the consternation of the majority of posters on Sundeck. =)

[Boss-Hog]

I've passed along this information to our host and we're continuing to keep ads disabled. Please let me know if you encounter any additional problems.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by texasdave

The same exact thing happened to me at work on Friday night. Was logging on to Redszone to check out the game thread when all computer-like heck broke loose. Powered off the computer and snuck away from that terminal quietly. I have Mozilla Firefox at home and have had no ill effects. Much to the consternation of the majority of posters on Sundeck. =)

Yeah they were also using IE, I use Firefox also.

[Boss-Hog]

From our host:

Hello,

I could not find any issue in the domain, also I recommend you to use some browser addons to get rid of those kind of adds, scripts etc.

If you are using Firefox/Google-Chrome then you can use the following addons:

-----
For Firefox :

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir.../adblock-plus/

For Google-Chrome:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...ibdccddilifddb
-----

Please use those addons and tell us if it make any difference.

[jojo]

Adblock plus works really well.....

[Boss-Hog]

I've always used it, too, since switching to Firefox several years ago and I've never had any problems.

[Boss-Hog]

From our host:

Hello,

Thanks for the update. From your update it is clear that only a handful of users having the problem, may be it's a local issue related to their machine.

Also I don't find any pop-up while browsing the domain redszone.com. Please advice him/her to use those addons.

If he/she still face any issue please get back to us with the exact steps to duplicate the issue at our end.

[Vottomatic]

The last 2 times I've accessed Redszone, my AVG virus protector has detected and blocked a threat. I close it immediately, so I don't know what kind of threat it is. But that's the first time it's ever happened to me. And it's not happening when I open any other sites, and I peruse alot of sites when I'm on here.

[Boss-Hog]

Thanks...I will follow up again with our host.

[Boss-Hog]

At this point, I'm 99% it is tied to the Google AdSense ads. In the meantime, I've turned the ads back off until we can get this problem resolved.

It would be very helpful in pinpointing which ad(s) is causing the problem if you can tell me information such as the page or pages you're seeing the detected threats on: is it on the main forums listing, the thread listing within a forum or when a thread is displayed?

[Sea Ray]

I'll chime in that I think I was affected as well. About two weeks ago my computer had a major meltdown so I gave it to my IT guy and he said:

All your desktop icons and user files had been set to 'hidden'. I ran a system restore and took it back to Friday 8/26 (after running a few different malware/virus scans to make sure the troublemaker was cleaned out). Sounds like it might be trying to pull a scam where everything disappears, then a pop-up will run a 'free' scan then offer to 'restore' all the missing info...for a fee. After I restored, I ended up finded a program that is supposed to be able to 'unhide' everything. It actually would be easy to reset the entire file system so nothing is hidden, but there are plenty of Windows system files that SHOULD be hidden so that would be a nightmare to try to identify and set everything to the correct status. Apparently the 'unhide' program uses info that the malware itself creates to allow everything to be restored.

When I mentioned what was posted here about the Malware attack he said "that sounds like that's it".

He was able to me back up running so all's well. That computer runs WIN XP with an AOL and IE browser, however I will say IE was one of the few programs that wasn't hidden after the attack. I don't know if that helps, but I wanted to give you all the info I could

[Boss-Hog]

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

I'll chime in that I think I was affected as well. About two weeks ago my computer had a major meltdown so I gave it to my IT guy and he said:



When I mentioned what was posted here about the Malware attack he said "that sounds like that's it".

He was able to me back up running so all's well. That computer runs WIN XP with an AOL and IE browser, however I will say IE was one of the few programs that wasn't hidden after the attack. I don't know if that helps, but I wanted to give you all the info I could

Thanks for the heads up...and if RZ (or more likely, the Google AdSense ads we display) is indeed the cause, I sincerely apologize for the trouble.

[top6]

FWIW, I had a similar experience to Sea Ray. I just gave my laptop to our IT people, so hopefully they will be able to fix it. At some point last Thursday (9/1) I must have download something and it just shut down every program (except Internet Explorer, similar to Sea Ray) and kept asking me to download "fixes" to scan and clean the computer. The fake diagnostic program was called Master Utilities. (Actually, from what I've read, it doesn't shut down everything but only makes it seem like everything is shut down and/or deleted. Of course, this distinction means nothing to people as un-technically savvy as me.) I did start having problems shortly after being on Reds Zone, but to be honest but for this thread I probably would not have tied the virus to this site. So it could have been from somewhere else entirely. But I thought would share just in case it would be helpful to someone.

Honestly, it was a pretty old/bad laptop and I don't think the virus protection was up to date, so lesson learned on that front.