Major League Baseball Strikes out

[blahtoausername]

Google own DoubleClick! Install NoScript, forbid DoubleClick - problem solved :)

[spongelic]

A long time ago (when I still used IE) the same thing happened to me on DeviantART but on GC it's fine.....

[thellama88]

I have one word: paranoia

[archerj13]

I don't know but would firefox noscript help stop this by stopping java,activex .etc scripts from running? If someone knows please reply because im curious to know.

[kotatsuken]

yeah, it will. but you dont have to worry about activex if you use firefox. also the adblock plus extension will block ads from sites like doubleclick, but most website owners rely on ad revenue to pay for their site, so adblock plus could hurt website owners.

[Pyrobox32]

Good point there, sites could run out of profit i suppose if everyone used adblock :D thanks for spreading this.

[LovefromUSSR]

it would

[K1ndaB0red]

Use Firefox or a Mac.

[retrogamer500]

One thing Windows users do that Mac users can't: STFU

[K1ndaB0red]

Dude, wth? I said FIREFOX or MAC, now I would REALLY sound like a jackass if I didn't say a way that Windows users can avoid this kinda stuff. besides, what is wrong with Mac? I use both, and I have no problems accepting both for everyday use, if someone says that windows is better, I don't give a crap, it is in someways so cool it, we don hav to result to cursing like 12 year olds, oh and look "4) Don't curse. Everyone who curses I automaticly assume that they are twelve years old." on ur pro

[Ikilledyou123]

MACs are often mis-used, they are designed for more horse power than a standard pc. like graphic editing, adobe tools ect. pretty much why they cost like $2000

[will122391]

For $2000 you can get a PC with incredible specs.

Macs are for looks, family. and a nice OS

Windows is for business, price, and compatibility.

[Ikilledyou123]

Windows based computers are based for cheapness, rather than a mac uses less resources which means hardware and software can perform faster

[xdorkiiee]

Whenever that shit comes up, all I do is just press back twice or three times to go back to where I was. Easy as that..

[NuMb3r1PuNjAbI94]

the mlb sites and stuff can't control what ads are put on

[jimboshared2]

go with firefox 

aol and internet explorer sucks

[cotton509]

malware alarm did that yo me and i removed it it came back then i killerd it or every

[gandhitaymour]

instead of clicking "cancel" or "ok" just click the "X" in the top right. "ok" isn't the only button you have to click.

[rogertatmindspring]

Nope. Clicking X won't do it. That behaves the same way as Cancel. What you have to do is kill the browser, or let it start to install and then kill the download.

[sangolt88]

Had this problem with Internet Explorer, than switched to FireFox and haven't had the problem once.

Opera & FireFor are the best.

[Sinquisition]

You, sir, are an idiot.

[Sinquisition]

I refer to NoumenalSoup. I sent too quickly.

[NoumenalSoup]

Way to be mature and give me thumbs down for speaking the truth about Firefox. That's classy! Oh, and despite whatever you want to believe, your Swiss-cheese browser is still going to suck.

[DanielGamesVideo]

No, Internet Explorer SUCKS!

[NoumenalSoup]

WAY TO ADD TO THE DISCUSSION

[ReedJaguar]

Switch to Mozilla Firefox Browser

Intall the following add-ons, then you'll be ok

Adblock Plus

NoScript

SiteAvisor

and LinkScanner

thats why our friend is "rogertatmindspring" used Internet Explorer on all videos, because Microsofts browser is the one of the problems

Merry Christmas

Great videos by the way and very useful

[syraneko]

good suggestion but sounds so difficult ;_;

[zapitron]

This thing is still around, as of November 27. Someone just tried to run this.

[wwwwolf]

A new "Web 2.0" problem? Not really, this is exactly the same sort of malicious ad banner thingy that's been around for *years*. Google for Ben Edelman's spyware videos...

And I agree, ad blockers are a must-have these days and cratering DoubleClick was the first thing I did when I installed AdBlock =)

[compulsoryregisbad]

Firefox + adblock solves this nicely. Block the ads before they load, and this can't happen.

[danthemainman1]

AdBlock's nice, but I wouldn't trust anything less than Firefox, AdBlock, and NoScript together. This is a serious case of Cross Site Scripting (XSS). I run Firefox, AdBlock, and NoScript on OS X and Linux, as well.

[kc2keo]

I don't have time to read your text comments but I'll make my own comment thats probably been mentioned already...

Normally if I ever get one of those annoying ads that tells me i'm infected I always click the "X" on the window to close it or use the keystroke "alt+f4" which closes it successfully most of the time. Those bad ads usually have bogus buttons!

[rogertatmindspring]

Hi,

The "X" doesn't generally work, but alt+F4 might.

Cheers

Roger

[kc2keo]

alt+f4 does do it for me. The "X" can be deceiving to some users because some ads put a window with an X in their ads.

Whether I'm using M$ Win or Linux I use Firefox with Adblock Plus and noscript among others. This allows me to block all ads and control scripts that I can view effectively. This greatly reduces chances of you being infected.

[videlanghelo]

Use Linux and browse safe everywhere. ;-)

[lcobian]

If averyone will use Windows, then Windows will be the safe one. It's all about critical mass, stupid.

[mazin07]

That made no sense.

[dmitrik]

Nope.

That is totally false and I'm not even gonna explain it to you (cmon, it's fucking youtube!), but if you actually bothered to check the facts, you'd know your statement is totally wrong, if not retarded at all.

Now, go get Linux and be safe! /dmitrik said

[dmitrik]

Can't even make a simple threaded view that shows who I'm replying to...

Correction: I'm replying to Icobian's statement.

[aurin06]

On the contrary, wouldn't "critical mass" be like beefing up a parasites host?

[EweTubeSux]

Firefox use helps over IE if you are forced to use Windoze. Firefox extensions like "Flash block" and "ad block" or "NoScript" also speed up surfing by blocking annoying ads and would have prevented the problem shown in this video. I've been blocking doubleclick at the firewall for years now, there is no good reason to allow doubleclick traffic.

[kc2keo]

Thats what I do. I use Linux with Firefox and Adblock Plus. Works great!

[marijuanaman2]

LOOK... THat was just closing windows and gifs (animated pictures) to make it look like you have a virus or something in order for you to download and eventually buy their anti virus software. If you fall for it and download the program all you get is virus protection so its doing you a favor realy. if your dumb enough to download it you should have it.

[ellenrr1983]

Something I've been wondering about: when I get a pop up like this I always close it out; either by hitting the X in the upper right or rightclicking the button at the bottom and choosing "close". I noticed you hit "cancel", if you had closed out instead would it have made a difference? Is there a difference in situations like this?

[phonebook9876]

Ellen, you are right to not use the cancel button as it can be programmed to do what the coders want (and you don't want). Even the X in the upper right should be avoided. The proper way to close these pop ups is to right-click the button on the task bar and chose close.

[elanicstuff]

My computer is completely immune from this nastiness. A long time ago, I found out about the "hosts file trick" - a geeky but effective way to block many ad servers from being able to serve ads up to your web browser in the first place. You end up with "holes" in your web page where ads used to be.

Google for "Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts file" - that brings you to a good explanation of the concept and the proper web page. He does not even charge for the service - which is wonderful.

[KartoffelnWerfer]

But then you should mantain that file up-to-date manually with new domains of malware that appear every day. It's better getting Firefox and NoScript.

[TransparentEye]

Thank you!

This was happening on my computer, and my anti-virus software did not find an infection. I then bought anti-spyware software, yet that too did not find an infection. I spent hours on this and was very frustrated.

I figured the infection was so devious as to evade these products, but now it seems like my computer was clean, and the Web sites I visited were the ones infected.

[uninorth13]

With Firefox addons (and some Safari additions) it is possible to disable flash. You will see a placeholder for any flash, so unless you decide to see a single flash page you won't see it. A good safety measure for this (and for not seeing any annoying flash ad in the first place).

[liberate98]

People have their own opinions and issues about computers advertising for something they don't want will cause problems Mac is alright but PCs you can do allot more on.

[pettyfog]

"This is NEVER EVER EVER an issue on Mac's..."

If there were no PC's it would be happening ON MACS!!!!

I ALMOST WISH MS would give it up so these hackers would shift to Mac's Then we'd hear some whining!!!

This kind of drivel is what you get from people who dont get the background or dont know computers

[EweTubeSux]

By the time M$ had realized the internet was comming they had to add on networking and security without breaking too much of it's existing software. This backward compatibility is the reason windows sucks on security and not the number of users or crackers.

[EikC]

I would have a PC because Macs suck at gaming, plain and simple, and I'm familiar with Windows; I know its quirks and upsides.

[AMVVir]

As Macs get more popular, we'll see more of this kind of thing for the Mac as well. Perhaps OS X is better than Windows, but there's nothing stopping you from making malware for the Mac and tricking people into running it in a similar way to what's shown in the video.

[zoromaskcoming]

we also got a lot of games on PC, a lot of applications, a lot of software. hehehe

[KartoffelnWerfer]

Because both Mac and Linux were made like other UNIXes, it's not easy (not like in Windows) to infect these OSes with viruses. Malware belongs to Windows world.

[zoromaskcoming]

there is always security risks and tricks. I must remind you of linux servers hacks. what do you think? these are not windows based. there are many ways to hack, infect using as simple as javascript and up to java, php, ssh scripts and more. and same for mac. protection always must be weighed vs. convenience.you can't get both fully.

[KartoffelnWerfer]

Of course, but a domestic Linux user isn't exposed to that kind of risks. A domestic user does not run Apache or PHP; and malware generally will get only user privileges; it won't own the computer. Despite of that, a bit of protection is needed, like NoScript or a firewall; Firefox has vulnerabilities, for example.

[zoromaskcoming]

never an issue on MAC, because people who use mac are very much less than people who use PCs. in other word, hackers think of MAC "who cares about fuc**n mac!". and Windows is much better by the way than all mac OS, windows built to sustain development opposite to macs. pc made to be for beginners and advanced, mac meant to be for fasion like ipod and for beginners.

[Ithil26]

Solution firefox+noscript.

Addoubelclick is in my black list

[EweTubeSux]

That's a nice thought but the real reason is MacOS is based on Unix which was developed about forty years ago as an industrial strength OS for multiuser, networked environments, specifically those of the military, it's suppliers and higher education. Windows was started as a single user, stand alone computer OS for home hobbyist on the cheapest hardware possible and a proper security model was never contemplated until YEARS after it's release. ...

[Deathdefiernb]

I got that before and I had to reformat my hdd to get rid of it. I only got it in ie and firefox seemed to be fine

[tusseyd]

Great work. Thanks for the heads up.

Questions: Is this Windows/IE only threat? And how should a user prevent this?

[rogertatmindspring]

Wel, it _used_ to be only a Windows threat, but within the last month or so, some of the Bad Guys have started delivering Mac trojans if they detect that you're running a Mac.

You can prevent it by (1) staying patched, and (2) being educated... these guys aren't forcingtheir way ...they're tricking the user.

[joelogon]

Good screencast. One thing you should probably call out more clearly -- the "scans" (with the progress bar, etc) aren't actual scans of your machine -- they're just fancy Flash animations. (I'm running Firefox on Mac OSX and the "scan" is showing me Windows files). All the other Javascript popup behavior is the same (including the fake Cancel buttons).

[rogertatmindspring]

Thanks. Yes, I thought I made that obvious, but I guess not. The whole point of it is social engineering, to trick the victim. The windows filenames on MacOS are a bit of a giveaway, eh?

It's worth noting, however, that some of these guys are already serving Mac trojans to Safari users. The windows file names are in a file that they download, so it's a small step for them to offer Mac filenames instead.

[AMVVir]

Ah yes. Even the malware writers have to start supporting Mac these days. :-)

[renumeratedfrog]

One must be a fucking moron to let an online app to run on your computer.

[drVitall]

You such a retard. You are saying that all kids that use online games provided by Disney are fucking morons? You are the fucking idiot.

[AMVVir]

It's all about who you trust. Would you trust Apple or Disney? Probably. Would you trust Microsoft? Many people do. Would you trust random hacker 328201? You shouldn't, but many people would anyway.

[sladevi]

You make it sound so simple, but it's not so easy. How do you so clearly determine who is behind the action, in order to decide who to trust? This is the problem raised by web 2.0, surfing the MLB site which you trust brings in all this external content. To the typical user, surfing the trustworthy MLB site, they see a pop-up and think, "MLB is telling me my computer is in trouble, I'd better do what they say." And social engineering techniques are only going to get more refined.

[Giiizmo]

So if this kind of hijacking is made possible through javascript, would simple Firefox plugins like NoScript and Adblock, which basically hinder any script from a given source from running, be enough to prevent this situation from happening?

[loosernumber5]

It seems like they would be. It also doesn't appear that this particular attack targets firefox users.

[fefe909]

how do you prevent this? what programs should you use?

[7heArchitect]

You're featured on Wired[dot]com. =D

[emptycorp]

foofoobee, tout linux all you want but 90% of the computer owning world can't just install linux without hassle, get it all working, and be able to play the games they want to play on their computer, by default.

linux is at least 5-10 years from supporting everything people want to do with their PCs fully.

macs also fail at playing all of the popular games at all.

[bdegrande]

This used to be true. As Macs now come standard with Boot Camp, which lets you dual boot Windows running at full speed. Macs can run any PC game that their graphics card can handle, same as PCs.

For an amazingly easy way to install Linux on a Windows PC, try Wubi. It creates a virtual partition and can be reversed by simply running the installer. You answer a few questions. You can choose Windows or Linux on bootup. You can use Linux for the Internet and run your games under Windows.

[dpaanlka]

Macs come with the ability for users to install their own copy of Windows, which they must purchase somewhere other than Apple, on a separate partition and run it separately from the Mac OS. This does not mean a malicious advertisement that downloads a windows executable on your Mac is going to be able to run it. Users would first have to restart their Mac in Windows by holding down a key combination, and then run the executable themselves. Which would be amazingly stupid...

[emptycorp]

my point was that windows is the only system out of the box that can install and play games with no trouble, insert CD and wham, here's the install prompt.

explain to some new mac user how they have to go out and purchase windows, use boot camp, dual boot, whatever.

until mac has native support for gaming then it's just not that great of a platform. I'm personally not going to spend thousands on a mac only to have to spend another couple hundred on windows just to play games.

[compulsoryregisbad]

I'm no Mac fan, but you're lucky if games work right out of the box on a fresh windows install. You almost always have to update things - display drivers, DirectX, etc. If you're lucky, that's /all/ you have to do, but quite a few games need some extra tweaking to really work well.

If you want something purely for games, by a game console.

Also, the whole Mac vs PC vs consoles argument really has nothing to do with this example of malware.

[emptycorp]

also, macs are insane in that you can't exactly upgrade hardware individually, you have to just keep buying more and more overpriced macs. Linux and windows don't fail like that.

[excel958]

Uh... no. You can purchase separate hardware upgrades just like any other operating system.

[foofoobee]

Another great reason to run Linux.

[nihonihon]

OK so when everyone is on Linux, all the new viruses will be created to run on Linux...great...

[rogertatmindspring]

You're welcome. At the risk of being accused of a Shameless Plug, my product LinkScanner, is pretty good at blocking the web-based attacks. It is meant to supplement, not replace, any antivirus or antispy program.

[xmlmagician]

good stuff fella

what software do you recomend for protection?

[jcarter666]

I recommend LongLifePC to protect your computer! lol

[xmlmagician]

wowowow...that was clever...i could not thought of that in a million years.

[loosernumber5]

The attacks probably come at certain hours because the advertisers are paying for blocks of time, which allows the ad agencies to charge more for prime times.

[rogertatmindspring]

Yes, I think that's fundamentally right.

[markdotnet]

That was a terrific video. My father got hit with this. Cleaning it up afterwards was nasty business.

Thanks and keep up the great work!

[blahnousernames]

Your videos are all so very informative! You make things very clear so newbies like me can even understand. Thanks for all your information! Thanks for taking the time and answering my email as well! I greatly appreciate it! :)

[rogertatmindspring]

You're _very_ welcome!

:-)

[MaykoProductions]

scary stuff!