1
Forum Settings
       
Reply To Thread

Malware warningFollow

#1 May 02 2016 at 5:34 AM Rating: Excellent
Sage
***
3,008 posts
When I logged in here this past Sunday morning (May 1st) my anti-virus warned me about serious malware on the site and blocked me from visiting. I use multiple methods to protect my computer, including running Norton and other compatible anti-malware software, as well as browsing in a sandbox. But I still respected the warning and did not continue to the site. I then resisted the temptation to try again till this morning (Monday) where it appears the malware was removed. I believe it was embedded in one of the popup ads, probably NOT in Zam's site directly. But this should be watched for carefully by the site's developers. Anyone visiting without good protection for their browser could have had their computer contaminated by a drive-by malware infection and that would be a very very bad thing. There are game-related sites I stopped visiting over the years because the webmasters just didn't seem to do a good job protecting their site. A symptom which everyone should pay attention to is when site forums are full of obviously spammer and robo type posts, having nothing to do with the site's subject matter. A site that doesn't protect and monitor its forums probably doesn't protect and monitor its own content as well, including banners and other ads. THIS site had trouble for a long while with such robo posts, but the good news is they used to remove them quickly and nowadays we don't even see them, which means either the devs have succeeded in blocking them completely---or perhaps it's just that there's less traffic in the EQ forums here now and the spammers don't bother to robo post!

Edited, May 2nd 2016 7:36am by Sippin
____________________________
Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
#2 May 02 2016 at 4:01 PM Rating: Excellent
Avatar
****
4,580 posts
szabo is lightning fast at nuking the robospammers.

If you see one, use the report feature as that goes high priority.
#3 May 05 2016 at 5:44 PM Rating: Good
Avatar
***
1,166 posts
Quote:
I use multiple methods to protect my computer, including running Norton and other compatible anti-malware software, as well as browsing in a sandbox.


Honestly, Norton is a virus.
____________________________
Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.

Barack Obama

Laen - 105 Dru
Haam - 105 Sk
Laosha - 105 Shammy
Lutan - 105 Bard
#4 May 16 2016 at 5:23 AM Rating: Excellent
Sage
***
3,008 posts
Seriously, Norton is a NECESSITY. Norton, or something similar. Nothing's perfect but browsing the Internet without good security is inevitable suicide for your computer. Frankly, I rely more on my sandbox software than anything else since, at least in theory, anything that downloads to a sandbox is not going to be able to infect your computer and will "poof" harmlessly when you close the browser.

This past weekend I had two malware warnings while visiting this site. Frankly, while I have confidence in my browser protections this is very disconcerting and I think the webmasters here need to do more to protect their visitors from drive-by infections. These problems are almost surely arising from paid ads on this site. That's a common vector for malware infection. TBH, I'm getting tired of seeing it because however secure my computer may be, it's very disconcerting. And I pity visitors who browse with less protection. Honestly, if this keeps up I may stop visiting and switch my EQ browsing time to other sites. Rule #1 in running a website is protect your visitors.
____________________________
Sippin 115 DRU **** Firiona Vie ****Agnarr
FV: 115 WAR ENC CLE MAG WIZ SHD SHM Master Alchemist ROG Master Tinkerer & Poison-Maker
Master Artisan (300+) * Baker * Brewer * Fletcher * Jeweler * Potter * Researcher * Smith * Tailor
Agnarr: 65 DRU ENC SHD MAG CLE ROG WIZ BRD WAR
#5 May 16 2016 at 12:21 PM Rating: Excellent
Avatar
***
1,738 posts
I think Norton is more useful than McAfee, although at the moment I'm using other anti-virus tools. McAfee was utterly useless to me and I noticed that it even received a mediocre review from Consumer Reports.

I don't see the virus warnings, but (I just realized) that's because I have my ad blocker on. I need to re-up my Zam membership, but in the meantime, if Zam wants to make money from ads, they need to make sure that those ads aren't infected. It's not going to work if everyone has to turn an ad blocker on just to browse the site without infection.
Reply To Thread

Colors Smileys Quote OriginalQuote Checked Help

 

Recent Visitors: 136 All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (136)