Sneaky Viruses Hidden in Ads and Web Pages

Almost every customer that comes into the office with a virus infected computer asks how does it happen. It used to be so easy to explain. Well you are going to "those" sites, or you are illegally downloading music, or even opened an email that said, "you have won $1,000,000 or whatever the cause was.

Not so any longer. Those things are still around, but now the age of embedded viruses in regular ol mainstream websites. Hackers get into websites and can put viruses right on the webpage, and it can load onto your computer. Some ads recently have even been found to contain viruses.

Here is a recent article

Remember it is important to keep current Anti-virus software on your computer and make sure it is doing a weekly scan, and that it is scanning your email and internet usage. Using IE-8 is not a bad idea. I have gotten past the newness and problems it originally had, but there are some really good security features in it.

Also, be careful of what you search for, and when you go there, be careful of the domain you are going to. The domain is the last part before the .com or .net or whatever the website is.

For example, if you are looking for www.ford .com the ford.com is the domain. Sometimes the link will look like

www.customerservice.ford.joeblow.com

If you see a link like that, the actual domain is joeblow.com, the last letters between the dots. It looks like ford, because ford is in the name. But the important part of the website address is the .com and the letters preceding that. None of the other parts of that website matter, and it is definitely not a ford motor company website.

In this screen shot of IE-8, notice how the domain is in bold, and since it is a secure site, the lock is showing and it is telling you it is the verified BofA site.

Be careful on what sites you go to. Take an extra couple seconds to look up at the address bar and see what domain you are really on. Some of the internet browsers, IE8, Firefox, have the domain highlighted now so you can tell right where you are at.

Also, when you do searches on things, the hackers go out and find what searches are the most popular. Jo-lo, Lindsey Lohan, Obama, whatever is being searched for.

They will put up bogus webpage's that will go to the top of the search engine, and they are infected sites.

Here is an article with more on this.

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