Possible viruses on the site

I have reasoning to believe that with the rise in spamming on these forums there is also a threat of malware and viruses.

I know this because today alone I have been infected many times and the consistent site is this one.


I would recommend that the forums are closed for a while so the mods can delete and ban. Also if we have access to the php code of this forum "striptags" should be applied.

This may seem rash but I assume many people here do not regularly check for viruses and if a fake windows security program came up they would go along with it and possibly become subject to credit card fraud and the like.

Please hear this out

 

What do you mean if a fake program "came up"? As in, if someone posted in the Plot Creation forum about how great their security program is?

Quite frankly, I don't think it's the forum's responsibility to protect these people. There's an element of safety necessary (and I support the idea of having to be accepted by a moderator before being able to post and such), but, really, a part of the privilege of using a computer is the responsibility of looking after it while you do use it.

Tl;dr: it's your responsibility, not the forum's problem.

 

There are popular viruses that appear to be antivirus programs which in themselves are viruses.


I just think, a few hours of downtime would be a small price to pay to have a less spammy forum.

 

As long as you don't click the links that spammers post you should be fine. The viruses you got might be because you clicked on a click, or they might just be from another site. In all my time here I've never had a virus (or any other problem) from this site.

 

Yup. As long as you don't click any of the dodgy links, then nothing can get into your computer. Really, you should always be careful about clicking links, and this is precisely why we're so strict about links on the site.

It sounds like you've ended up with some malware on your computer. If you haven't already, get something like MalwareBytes, and it will remove it. Also, it could come from anywhere. I highly doubt that it was this site, unless (as I said above) you've been clicking spam links.

Oh, and whilst I'm here, please don't reply to spam either. It won't put your computer at risk, but it makes cleaning it up a pain in the arse for me

 

I know people on another vBulliten forum got some viruses and they did not click links. The board had been hacked and it was causing quite a lot of trouble, especially for those with IE browsers. Not saying that this board is at all infected, but it's definitely not a threat to write off.

 

IF the board is infected, which i very much doubt it is, deleting people wont help. The site's IT person should be constantly searching for malware and greyware, so no worries.

 

My virus software hasn't flagged anything and everything seems to be fine for me. I also don't click links. Also, not to say anything about your friends at all, I don't know them, but very often people will say they haven't when they have because they know better and never should have. They don't want to admit they've clicked it.

I very rarely click links here, and there are criteria that have to be met, lol. For the record, I haven't had any problems.

 

Even if the board was infected, it couldn't simply destroy your computer by you going onto it. Modern browsers contain protocols to stop any such infection- you'd need to download something to become infected. And like Trish, my anti-virus and anti-malware haven't flagged anything.

 

Neither have mine, and I'm logged in to the site pretty much all day.

 

Spyware can hook onto you if you open the wrong pages but I've never seen any such things on forums. Just have some spyware protection and you have nothing to fear at all.
Or run Mac OS.

 

My home and work has tough to crack firewalls, but yeah, if you're unsure about a link copy it into bing, I do a lot of searches there, at home Norton actually shows a check mark if the site is safe to use, I searched this site this morning (to lazy to book mark it) it had a check mark same as always.

~Phantom

 

i've had no problems because i don't click on any links and don't ever reply to obvious spam posts... you must have done so, or you wouldn't have had a problem, color...

so there's no need to close the site down... just be more careful about your use of it and you'll be safe...

 

I believe this is entirely possible with a php script.

This forum is php based

 

Are you accusing Daniel of programming viruses in to the site? Because no one else can modify the PHP code of the site.

Please stop scaremongering. Although there's no such thing as absolute safety, the chances of getting a virus from the site are close to nil unless you start clicking offsite links.

 

not at all mr.mod.

The issue is resolved.

 

Yes. No.

 

I haven't had any trouble when visiting the site in Windows. I use Chrome, Opera, Firefox, and IE, and so far no malware.

Most of the time I'm in Linux, so I supposed if there were malware for Windows I wouldn't notice it, but I do visit a lot in Windows and in all the time I've been here I've never had an issue.

MacOS has viruses out there, but the chances of coming across them seem to be remote. The downside to going that route, though, is of course that you have to run MacOS.

 

Yeah, if you have a good anti-virus software system, you should be ok. And make sure not to click on anything that you might think twice about...