Virus concern

[J-WO]

Very, very sorry if I'm causing alarm over nothing here- my I.t knowledge belongs in the stone age- but I just clicked on one of the announcements on the forum page and my laptop warned me of an attempted worm/virus.
Its the strategicpublishing announcement.
Once again, I apologize if I'm causing alarm unnecersarily, especially to s-publishing, but I thought it better safe than sorry. Repeat- I know sod all about computers.

[Shadow Trooper]

Not an expert either but my best advice would be to make sure you have some kind of anti-virus software set up on your system, and make sure you regularly update it (AVG is a well respected free anti-virus programme). If this (AVG) highlights a problem then you know it to be legit.

Unfortunately nowadays, whilst on the internet, you get messages like 'A virus has been detected, would you like to clear it'; 'A scan has detected your computer is running at half its speed, would you like to speed it up' and 'Hey! You're the 1 millionth visitor to this site, pick up your free TV, Car, Small Country etc etc'. These are usually links to sites wanting you to download something (sometimes a legit software programme, sometimes malicious software!); either way, usually an unwanted plug.

Hope that helps.

[J-WO]

Cheers shadow, looks like you're right. Sorry everyone. Erm... feeling a bit sheepish here. Who the hell let me near a computer?

[Shadow Trooper]

No problem......and if you didn't have a computer, then how could you have come to the Chrons for help, ahhh didn't think of that did you




Of course, if you didn't have a computer you'd never got that message in the first place LOL

Welcome to the Chrons.

[J-WO]

Sod it, I'm going back to the abacus...

[I, Brian]

J WO, if you could let me know which thread it is, I'll take a closer look and make sure no one has attached anything iffy.

[J-WO]

Quite a while back now, bit hazy. But I recall it happened in about the first few minutes of me going on the site. So probably on the forums list itself or one of the publishing threads- generally where I go first. But it was when I clicked on one of the announcements that my p.c warned me.
Sorry if I'm making a storm in a teacup, but I thought at the time it was better to play it safe.

[Dave]

I'm no expert at all, but I would think it was more likely to be a script in one of the Google advertisements.

[Deathpool]

Originally Posted by Dave

I'm no expert at all, but I would think it was more likely to be a script in one of the Google advertisements.

That might be. Scripts can download excecutable files without permision. Right now I'm working on an internet browser that looks for scripts doing anything out of the ordinary and if the scripts are than it disables scripts. It won't require updates to run. Not that it'll work. With current antivirus software there can be false positives. Correct me if I'm wrong.