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Comments: 403 +-   New York Times Site Pop-Up Says Your Computer Is Infected on Sunday September 13, @06:59PM

Posted by timothy on Sunday September 13, @06:59PM
from the if-you're-reading-this-you-have-a-virus dept.
security
themedia
news
Zott writes "Apparently, 'some readers' of the New York Times site are getting a bit more with their news: an apparently syndicated adware popup with a faux virus scan of the user's computer indicating they are infected, and a link to go download a fix now. It's entertaining when a Mac user gets it, but clearly downloading an .exe file isn't a good way to keep your computer clean ..." Update: 09/14 03:20 GMT by T : Troy encountered this malware, "and did basic forensics. Summary: iframe ad then series of HTML/JS redirects, ending at a fake virus scanner page with a "Scan" link (made to look like a dialog box button) that downloaded malware." Nice explanation!
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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13, @07:02PM (#29408785)

    I think it's actually more entertaining when I don't get it at all on any platform, because I disabled javascript.

    • by PlusFiveTroll (754249) on Sunday September 13, @07:14PM (#29408867) Homepage

      FF + Adblock is my way to avoid it (and still get the sites I need .js to run on).

      This crap has been going on for a few years now with the 'AntiVirus XP' scam (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/anatomy_of_a_hack/) that seems to strike major sites every few months. Just goes to show the ad distributers have no control ( or don't want it) over what goes in to their distribution network.
       
       

      Sad this is, people fall for it all the time :(

      • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13, @07:20PM (#29408905)

        The newest version of the "Antivirus 2010" software is a pain in the ass to get rid of. It rootkits the system and makes manual removal pretty much impossible without a WinPE boot disk of some kind, and even then it's difficult to find all the instances. There's one tool I found to remove it and most of its kin, and that is combofix [bleepingcomputer.com]. It successfully cleans Antivirus 2010 and a host of other rootkit-based malware in a process I can only describe as "magic". I'm just posting this to help out others that have spent way too much time trying to get rid of this crap off of friend/family computers.

        • by Z34107 (925136) on Sunday September 13, @07:43PM (#29409081)

          I completely agree with "combofix rocks." My job at the college I attend is pretty much removing that virus 24/7 from student laptops, and I've learned a few things:

          1) McAfee sucks. We supply a copy of the Enterprise version to students, and a patched installation is required for internet access. Somehow, we're still inundated every semester with the latest flavor of AntiVirus ModelYear.

          2) ComboFix is amazing. It's simple, but it automates a lot of tools that are a bit of a pain to use on their own. Ten minutes, and most malware is somewhat neutered.

          3) MalwareBytes is amazing. ComboFix always misses stuff, but it lets us install MalwareBytes (also free) which finishes the job. I haven't seen any virus MB couldn't remove.

          It's usually faster to run ComboFix + MalwareBytes (half hour between the tools in most cases) than it is to nuke it from orbit and reinstall Windows. Unless you're paranoid, two programs will take care of your end of your extended family's implied social support contract.

          • by davidphogan74 (623610) on Sunday September 13, @08:12PM (#29409243) Homepage

            You make people use McAfee to get online? That would be enough to make me transfer.

          • by Deathlizard (115856) on Sunday September 13, @09:36PM (#29409687) Homepage Journal

            We Use F-secure here. I wish we didn't, especially when they tell us not to go to known malware sites to test if their protection is working (even though a studest is going to do just that). Makes you feel really secure doesn't it? I really wish we were running either Avira Antivir or Microsoft Forefront, since they seem to have the highest detection rates against roges so far, but we decided to give F-secure a second chance. I don't know why.

            Anyway, Since we have a laptop program at the college, our answer is simple. You're getting a new hard drive and we will move your favorites, My Documents and anything on your desktop. I know students don't like this option, but they REALLY won't like their credit card being stolen, or worse; their identity. Usually when I explain to them that this method is the safest option and that ID theft has happened to students (Guess what! if you pay for Antivirus 360 at 79.95, it still doesn't work AND they got your $79.95 AND they got your CC number and all the info they need to start swiping away your credit score!!) they agree with it, but some just don't care as long as they can download movies ("My Friends Hot Mom". "Milf Hunter", ETC) or music (from Gnutella, where the music is usually trojans or piggybacking some sort of virus) all day. Most will be back infected within the month as well.

            The worst one so far is TDSS.F. It runs a rogue DCHP server across your network and tries to infect anyone that connects through it. It also adds autorun entries to infect across hard and flash drives and likes to install file fixer pro, which encrypts all your files. Luckily, Bradford Campus Manager detects the DHCP rogue and denies them access (That's why many campuses do this registration [slashdot.org] now.) but our virus scanner always misses it.

          • by Culture20 (968837) on Sunday September 13, @09:39PM (#29409695)

            It's usually faster to run ComboFix + MalwareBytes (half hour between the tools in most cases) than it is to nuke it from orbit and reinstall Windows. Unless you're paranoid, two programs will take care of your end of your extended family's implied social support contract.

            It used to be A rocked, and then A and B rocked. Then B started to suck, so we used A & C, then malware defeated A, so we used D & C (C had to be used second), with a splash of E. A came back with a new version, and we'll call it F. F'n rocked! Then it sucked. etc.

            I could never be bothered figuring out which version of what software _really_ cleans up this week's malware. I always would nuke from orbit (after judiciously backing up data using the drive as a neutered USB disk).

          • by symbolset (646467) on Sunday September 13, @10:36PM (#29410039) Journal

            If you can confirm that there was malware on the system there is no cure except to start with a clean image - preferably one you stored with an imaging tool like the free Clonezilla [clonezilla.org] prior to accessing any network at all or any untrusted media. Putting a clean image on can take 5-30 minutes, and is certain to remove all traces of infestation. It's actually quicker than scanning. Once you've got a confirmed hit your only business using a compromised machine is an inspection of the features that got the user into trouble so you can turn those off after you image, and capture for them a more suitable image.

            There's a tired old nag about no software being secure but really one thing is for certain: once an app has been running that's known to be infested it got there because the maker knew something the user didn't. Among the other things the user doesn't know are how many other applications the malware infested, how many running services were leveraged with local privilege escalation, how many rootkits of various sorts were installed. Most modern malware immediately upon installation scans the local system and sniffs the network. They look up components and download a cocktail of toxic code that's both tailored to the specific machine and randomly generated so as to be unique. There's a management system that auto-permutes millions of vile code variants every day, and uses a genetic algorithm to determine which of the little beasties is the most efficient. This is not your dad's malware ecosystem.

            Pretending to remove malware is nothing short of malpractice. All you're doing is helping the bad guys by pointing out which modules survive a cursory attempt at cleaning.

              • by Z34107 (925136) on Monday September 14, @07:09AM (#29411991)

                Download the Microsoft WAIK and install it. Use ImageX to create a file-based .WIM image of your system and files.

                Then, download dd for Windows. Use it to copy the first 512 bytes or the first cluster of Partition0 on the hard disk Windows is installed on. This will capture your boot sector.

                If you're trying to use this for daily backups, ImageX won't work... You could always schedule robocopy to run daily/weekly instead. (It's included with Vista and up, but you can download it for XP.)

                If you're not using it for daily backups, ImageX still requires "mucking about with special image files," but you can use ImageX to mount .WIM files into a directory, meaning you can use Windows Explorer or whatever tool browse and modify the file system.

                Instead of DD, you could always use a Vista and above install disc or make a Windows PE disc with the WAIK and run bootsect. "Bootsect /nt52 all mbr" will get you a clean NTLDR boot sector, and "bootsect /n560 all mbr" will get you a Vista BCD-based bootsector. Of course, that only works if you're using either of those as your bootloader, but if you are, you don't even need DD.

            • by Hojima (1228978) on Sunday September 13, @08:11PM (#29409237)

              I personally use Comodo firewall, and it's one hell of delicate security guard. I have to turn it off when I install anything because I will be there all day clicking approve. It's not annoying when you know how to use it and change its settings (takes a nominal amount of time). I've had a lot of instances now when I even purposely download sketchy .exe files, and it alerts me right away about suspicious activity in the computer. Best of all it's free.

              • Yes I downloaded Combofix from bleepingcomputer.

                I am not sure why it would be flagged as a false positive. I am suspicious of any program that says I have to shut down my AV software in order for it to run.

                Luckily both Unhackme and Spysweeper removed it, and was able to restore my control panel as well. I noticed that ComboFix was not in the Add/Remove programs and I tried the "Combofix /u" to uninstall it only to be greeted with a file not found error.

                I looked in the program files directory and it was not there, but on the root directory of my system under c:\combofix\ hidden as a system file with copies of iexplore.exe and other files. Easy enough to delete, but the uninstall didn't seem to work. Maybe the combofix.exe file was deleted as a virus?

                Spysweeper reported it as Mal/Pack-A, Virus/Test, and one other I forgot, and Unhackme said it was the FU Rootkit. Kapersky said it was Trojan.Win32.Inject.ph. I would think Combofix would have been whitelisted by now as a false positive and removed from the detections, but apparently it has not.

                Users need to be warned about false positives if that is indeed the case. I did a web search and it turned up web sites suggesting using Combofix, so I suspect it may be indeed a false positive. I can recall the BartPE and Retrago WinPE boot tools had some of their automated programs got detected as hack tools and removed via AV software as well. Maybe those Hack tools are effective at removing stuff the non-Hack tools don't?

            • by Z34107 (925136) on Sunday September 13, @10:35PM (#29410035)

              No, we have no central management of the enterprise AV. Yes, it is painful. But, IT is a separate department - they make policy, we live with it, though they're all nice, smart people who are just hung up on McAfee for some reason.

              Our DHCP server compares your MAC address against a list of "registered" machines. If there's no match, meaning your machine is unregistered, you get an IP address within a special "unregistered" subnet. The subnet is denied internet access, and any HTTP requests are redirected to the local registration website.

              The registration website gives you a link to the McAfee installer. You then have to download and run a custom "validator" program that checks for the presence of McAfee, and then adds your MAC address to the approved list.

              Yes, this can easily be circumvented, but how many people know how to do MAC sniffing/spoofing? Those that can probably aren't going to get viruses on their Winboxen.

          • by Z34107 (925136) on Sunday September 13, @08:13PM (#29409251)

            In a perfect world, we would do that, but we get too many machines in and out to make that feasible. Then, there's all the normal luser problems: I don't know where my files are, I have no install media, I have no keys, I deleted my recover partition to save space, etc.

            The foolproof way to remove the AntiVirus ModelYear rootkit is: Make a file-based image of the hard disk. By design, it hides from the file system, meaning it will not be included in a image made by a tool like ImageX from Microsoft's free WAIK. Gather an image and apply it to the same hard disk, and the rootkit's gone.

            If you're adventurous, ImageX lets you mount the image file on a clean PC to do offline scans of its files and registry hives. You can clean a computer without ever booting it.

            But, that's generally overkill. AntiVirus ModelYear rootkit isn't the nasty kind of hardware-hypervisor rootkit - it runs at kernel privileges. So does MalwareBytes. To be dangerous, it has to run at a higher privilege level than the removal tools.

            For family members that promise me food, I go the extra mile and do the clean install for them. Staff machines we just re-image.

                • by Z34107 (925136) on Sunday September 13, @10:43PM (#29410081)

                  This.

                  The discovery that it removed the rootkit was a happy accident. After a few unhappy incidents related to the aforementioned "luser problems," we've taken to making such a CYA image of every laptop that passes through our fingers, just in case.

                  After a scan found the TDSS rootkit on a laptop, I decided it would be easier to disinfect the backup image. I discovered none of the hidden TDSS* were even in the image, and concluded that the obfuscation techniques worked all too well.

                  Although the infected system files were indeed still in the image, the bulk of the rootkit hides in these hidden TDSS(garbage characters) files, which were not gathered, leaving the rootkit neutered.

      • by mysidia (191772) on Sunday September 13, @10:39PM (#29410063)

        They need to take responsibility for what they publish on their own sites.

        I'd like to see a class action suit against the NY Times or the ad network they use by users who were infected.

        Based on NYT negligently allowing advertisers to inject code into their web site.

        I can understand users getting hit with fake dialogs after clicking on an ad.

        But I believe web sites have a duty to take standard precautions and avoid loading remote script code

        I differentiate ad content from code. It's not rocket science -- when the advertiser uploads their ad unit, sanitize the input, so the upload cannot contain any javascript, SCRIPT, IFARME, FRAME, or other unexpected tags or tag attributes, for that matter, or any remote loading. Only approved 'safe' HTML tags such as IMG. And any images referred must be uploaded and served from the ad network (again, no remote loading).

        Again, it's not rocket science to sanitize input. There's really no excuse for not doing it, other than negligently ignoring security issues, and possible harm malicious ads can do...

        • by hairyfeet (841228) <bassbeast1968.gmail@com> on Sunday September 13, @08:14PM (#29409259)
          Question-were you running NoScript as well? because while I have found that ABP does block a lot of attacks through ads, to really lock it down you really need NoScript as well. Why the browser manufacturers can't simply build in whitelisting for sites, instead of the current "all or nothing" approach, is beyond me. But until then it is Firefox+ABP+NoScript for me.
  • News? Where? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SilverHatHacker (1381259) on Sunday September 13, @07:09PM (#29408837)
    What exactly makes this different from any of the other hundreds of sites with the same popup? Is it just because this is a large, well-known website like the New York Times?
    • Re:News? Where? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by petermgreen (876956) <plugwash.p10link@net> on Sunday September 13, @07:35PM (#29409019) Homepage

      Not exactly news but nonetheless a sad indictment of the state of online advertising that even big sites with a reputation to uphold are using adverts from seedy advert networks who tolerate this shit.

    • Re:News? Where? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jahava (946858) on Sunday September 13, @07:43PM (#29409083)

      What exactly makes this different from any of the other hundreds of sites with the same popup? Is it just because this is a large, well-known website like the New York Times?

      That's my impression. I think the interesting thing here is that the presumption that reputable websites have reputable advertisements has been violated. NYT's advertising policies [whsites.net] include the following paragraph [whsites.net]:

      The Times may decline to accept advertising that is misleading, inaccurate or fraudulent; that makes unfair competitive claims; or that fails to comply with its standards of decency and dignity.

      Granted, they don't outright state that the content is prohibited, but they do imply a stance against this type of advertising. This is a clear violation of that intention, and they took the appropriate response. I'd be most interested in knowing if this particular advertisement was intentionally approved, "slipped through" accidentally, or was injected illicitly (e.g., their advertising server was hacked, etc.).

  • I saw it (Score:5, Funny)

    by HangingChad (677530) on Sunday September 13, @07:13PM (#29408855) Homepage

    But when it starts telling me the C:\ drive on my Linux box is infected it's hard to stop laughing.

    Still was a job to get rid of the circle jerk pop ups.

  • by PC and Sony Fanboy (1248258) on Sunday September 13, @07:15PM (#29408875) Journal
    And they wonder - Why is print media dying?

    Because they can't adapt properly. Seriously guys, filter your ads!
    • by Aurisor (932566) on Sunday September 13, @07:24PM (#29408931) Homepage

      The New York Times is one of the most respected publications in the world. It's not going anywhere.

          • by Bigjeff5 (1143585) on Sunday September 13, @10:58PM (#29410147)

            Did you read those financial statements? The stockholder's equity is down almost $1 billion, or 60%, since 2005. They have more debt than their balance now (which was not so just a few years ago), they lost their ass in 2006 (net loss of $500+ million), gained a little in 2007, and lost most of what they gained in 2008. They had a net loss of $57 million in 2008. Contrast that with 2007 where they had a net profit of $200 million. That's pretty tight with revenues of over $3 billion.

            Did you read that financial statemnet at all? It's downright depressing. Did you read where the $40 million 2Q profit came from? They are cutting nearly $500 million out of their budget this year, and yet that has produced only $40 million in profit. Analysts aren't impressed, because revenues are down by 20% of the already low number they were anticipating.

            What happens when they run out of things to cut? They've got $1 billion in debt and are only making $20-40 million a quarter. The belt is tight and getting tighter, things are not exactly going well at NYT.

            Bleeding is the right word, they only look ok right now because they were hemorraging a few years ago.

    • by wampus (1932) on Sunday September 13, @07:30PM (#29408989)

      Yeah, I was sitting over breakfast reading the Sunday Times and this popped up. Doomed.

  • by QuantumG (50515) * <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday September 13, @07:21PM (#29408909) Homepage Journal

    What really annoys me is that these things are most effective because they use javascript alerts to freeze the browser. If you could just browse away from the crap, I could teach my parents just to ignore it.

    "Javascript alerts are not tab modal" has been a known bug in Firefox going on 9 years now. It's not just an annoyance, it's a security bug, fix it!

     

  • Damn right (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 13, @07:23PM (#29408921)

    but clearly downloading an .exe file isn't a good way to keep your computer clean ..."

    Absolutely, .com, .bat and .scr are the only way to go!

  • by PPH (736903) on Sunday September 13, @07:26PM (#29408955)

    ... if we wanted to catch a virus from the New York Times, we had to read a copy that some hobo had used for a blanket.

    Now you kids stay off my lawn!

  • by fermion (181285) on Sunday September 13, @07:29PM (#29408983) Homepage Journal
    It really is a good social attack, reminiscent of the days when advertisers put 'click ok to continue' buttons to trick users to a promotional web site.

    In this case, it runs a mock scan, states the computer is infected, and then pretends to offer help. The exe file sometimes gets downloaded. From the way I have seen IE work lately, I would not think the file would download without user intervention, but, the page does a good job of scaring users, so I suspect some might download the files.

    The malware site is protection-check07com

    malwareurl.com [malwareurl.com] has the owner listed as Elton John, perhaps on can think that this is pseudonym. Kind of lends credence to rules that require valid information on domain name registrations.

    In any case, this is where the address is listed [google.com]. Looks residential, so maybe that is fake as well. I hope the protection-check people are not setting up some poor sod. Ha, protection check.

    Of course this does bring up two issues. Everyone is afraid of viruses, so it easy to translate that fear into irrational action. It might make us think about some activities that went on this past weekend. Second, such attacks work on mimicking the theme of certain systems, so perhaps one countermeasure is to allow users to vary they theme. This might be very good for corporate machines, as firms might like custom themes. On Macs and *nix, of course, the attack did not work because the web page did not integrate into the background, an elephant is going to look quite conspicuous in a field of leopards.

  • by bsandersen (835481) on Sunday September 13, @07:38PM (#29409039) Homepage

    The concern I have over the long term is that sites like the NYT may not know what advertisements will appear because they are placed by bulk-buying proxies that dispense them at page-load time, probably based on evil-cookie trails or other demographic markers. So, the question becomes: how should a presumably high-integrity site such as a major news outlet ensure quality when they've outsourced advertisement delivery?

    Review of each possible advertisement would be onerous, but failure to have some standards in place will eventually lead to malware (or worse) injected into unsuspecting reader's machines. I just chuckled when it popped up. I run Macs at home. But, when things like this happen to family members running PCs (and we get the phone call) it stops being funny pretty quickly.

    Is there a business case for reviewing advertisements (and the associated mobile code whether it be FLASH, etc.) for a 21st century "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval"? After all, the NYT and others are just one virus (or porn advertisement) away from a PR nightmare.

      • by bsandersen (835481) on Sunday September 13, @07:55PM (#29409149) Homepage

        So we're OK with major newspapers having absolutely no standards at all these days?

        I believe I said the opposite; I said a failure to have standards will cause problems.

        What do you suppose people did back in the days before you could get ads via RSS feed?

        They reviewed the advertisements with their clients directly. There were a few hundred per day and it was a manageable problem. Now, advertisements may be served by proxies and selected from among tens of thousands of potential ads, designed to be targeted to readers in specific geographic regions, income levels, purchasing habits, interests, age categories, gender, education level, or other factors.

        The point of my post was that the combinatorial explosion of possible advertisement choices to be served-up on my specific page load may not be easily reviewable by NYT staff a priori.

  • by Morris Thorpe (762715) on Sunday September 13, @07:44PM (#29409087)

    I had the popup (despite FF w/adblock enabled) while reading a story this morning.
    I never even considered that the Times would be running something like this so I launched into cleansing mode. I wasted an hour hunting for malware or a virus that was not there. Thanks a lot!

  • CNN... (Score:5, Informative)

    by CryptoJones (565561) <akclark.cryptospace@com> on Sunday September 13, @08:52PM (#29409453) Homepage
    has also been doing this for the past two days.
  • by davidshewitt (1552163) on Sunday September 13, @08:54PM (#29409473)
    ...seem to do the trick for me. I put this huge list of malicious sites into my HOSTS file, so most ads never even show up. http://www.grc.com/sn/hosts_mvps_org.txt [grc.com]
    • by Rick17JJ (744063) on Monday September 14, @01:25AM (#29410743)
      I have been using the latest version of the MVPS modified hosts file on both my Linux computer and on my Windows XP computer. However,instead of using the 06-14-06 version which davidshewitt linked to, I have been using the much newer Sept-02-2009 version instead. One link is for, what at the moment, is the latest version of the modified hosts file and the other link is to the installation instructions and general information.

      http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
      http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt

      I recently also started using the NoScript add-on and also the Adblock Plus add-on for Firefox on both my Linux computer and on my Windows XP computer. But, perhaps using both the ad blocking host file, plus Adbock Plus, is redundant and unnecessary. With the NoScript ad-on, I occasionally click on the icon, which has now been added to the lower right corner of Firefox. After clicking on that, I can choose whether to temporarily or permanently allow a particular web site scripts.

      I do nearly all of my Internet browsing from my Linux box. But, when I occasionally actually dare to use my Windows XP computer to browse the Internet, I use Sandboxie to sandbox my default browser, which in my case happens to be Firefox. I am not an expert on any of this, and am not a regular Security Now listener, but here are a couple of episodes that are about Sandboxie.

      http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-172.htm
      http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-174.htm
  • but clearly downloading an .exe file isn't a good way to keep your computer clean ...

    Then how else are Windows users supposed to get new software? Downloading and installing random executables from god-knows-where is the expected method in Windows. Then people wonder why Windows users get infected with all kinds of crap.

    The lack of any managed repository of vetted and verified software is, to me, the number one reason Windows sucks so hard, A plain vanilla Windows install does absolutely nothing on its own -- you're expected to go find all the software you need, and this trains users to believe that downloading and installing random crap is just fine.

    Combine that with Windows' propensity for getting up in your face about every little detail -- THIS SOFTWARE NEEDS UPDATING! YOUR FIREWALL SETTINGS AREN'T CORRECT SOME OTHER SOFTWARE NEEDS UPDATING! CLICK HERE TO GET NEW VIRUS DEFINITIONS! CLICK ME! CLICK ME! CLICK ME! -- and it's easy to understand how this happens.

    The entire Windows model is built around mindless, unnecessary alerts and "download and install now" crap. How are you supposed to teach users which are legitimate and which are not, and what's okay to download and what isn't, when the culture of the OS itself encourages you to do all the wrong things?
  • by dk90406 (797452) on Monday September 14, @04:36AM (#29411371)
    The story [nytimes.com] is somewhat weak. It suggests running Avast and MS Malicious Software Removal Tool.
    • by Ron_Fitzgerald (1101005) on Sunday September 13, @07:32PM (#29409003)
      Unfortunately this has nothing to do with New York Times' security and that is the whole problem. New York Times hires an 'ad agency' which is quite a bullshit term in this case if you ask me. They embed some open ended script from said firm and then at that point have no idea what is being displayed. This 'firm' may even rent or sell the embedded space to yet another company so then even the firm has no idea what ad is being displayed. All these automated, unmonitored and unregulated ads on pages are a huge security hole but in the name of profit, who really cares?
      • by LordLimecat (1103839) on Monday September 14, @12:19AM (#29410519)
        This is a NYTimes issue just as rotten meat is the supermarkets problem--whether or not its because of a rotten vendor. If you go with your attitude, we can never blame anyone-- Honda may get some parts manufactured at a 3rd party foundry, so theyre not to blame for defects! Dell uses Foxconn for their power supplies, so you cant blame Dell for computers that crap out in 2 years! Sony outsources its battery manufacturing to Taiwan, its not THEIR fault the batteries can catch fire, honest!
    • by eric31415927 (861917) on Sunday September 13, @07:42PM (#29409073)

      Two years ago, I got my 67-year-old mother online with a Debian (stable) box for web browsing, emailing, and printing.
      At least twice in these two years, she has come across web pages warning that her operating system has been infected with a virus.
      The web pages make it look like she has an infected Windows system - similar to the link from the NYT web page.

      I reassure her each time that her computer has not been infected, and it is not likely to ever be infected so long as she is careful with her password.
      I would like Firefox (or in her case IceWeasel) to have a plugin to avoid loading pages that look like Windows Explorer.
      This would save people like my mother and businesses like the NYT from undue stress.

      • by Darkness404 (1287218) on Sunday September 13, @07:35PM (#29409021)
        I wonder when they will start searching user agent strings and making it look native (Classic on pre-XP, Luna on XP and Aero on Vista/7, and Aqua on OS X). A dialogue that looks like the Ubuntu install software window could fool a lot of users....
          • by Darkness404 (1287218) on Sunday September 13, @08:24PM (#29409311)
            Yeah, but how many more Mac users or Linux users (who in general are "immune" to viruses and other malware due to their lower marketshare and in general better security) would be fooled into running a strange program if it looked exactly like something that they were running? An "update" to Firefox or Safari? No Mac user is going to download something that looks like XP, and a lot of Vista users would be suspicious if it looks like XP.
      • by lorenlal (164133) on Sunday September 13, @09:06PM (#29409539)

        I've seen this pop up before... On my roommate's computer. It appears a lot like a Windows Vista secure desktop warning by taking up the whole screen with a darkened border. The message follows a format that looks a lot like other Vista menus and messages. To the user, it doesn't look like it's a message from the website... But rather from Windows.

        I could easily see how most people could click the screen (literally anywhere) where it asks to download a fix called "install.exe." Plus, if you are one of the poor users who uses the terrible AV solution [mcafee.com], that seems to have an agreement with anyone with a large user base, you're totally screwed because this virus seems quite effective at knocking it dead out.

        I'm more concerned with the fact that this is popping up in what are normally quite trustworthy sources. I was initially afraid that Yahoo had sold out, it just seems like they got the same treatment as the NYTimes. This speaks more to the vulnerabilities of the webservers that are hosting these sites to me. Does anyone know what platform they're sitting on? I'd like to know if there's a hole out there that I should concern my company with... I'm totally serious.

Executive ability is prominent in your make-up.