Autopia.org bad for you?

[Setec Astronomy]

I was googling around on this a bit this morning, and it has already become internet conspiracy-theory lore. Plenty of DavidB bashing, misinformation, but mostly, a lot of warnings to stay away from the site, amid suggestions that the management was complicit in the problem because they didn't do anything about it. And so the price of not reacting quickly enough. Oh well.

[Mindflux]

for what it's worth, i now use exclusively firefox with adblocker plus installed. it's amazing for this sort of thing as it prevents it from running in the first place.

Just be aware that I run FF and ABP and got this "virus" from Autopia. It had nothing to do with the ads really and everything to do with a javascript that got injected into the pages and allowed to run.

[Setec Astronomy]

Fluxy, I presume someone is actually making money from this "virus" since there must be some percentage of infected users who buy the "antivirus" solution it is pushing. Any idea how that works (again, presuming that "SecurityTool" or whatever it was actually takes your money; I didn't see where anyone actually said that--maybe it does nothing if you try, or just steals your CC data)?

[builthatch]

Just be aware that I run FF and ABP and got this "virus" from Autopia. It had nothing to do with the ads really and everything to do with a javascript that got injected into the pages and allowed to run.

ahh, i should have been more specific - does anyone know if browsers got hijacked as a result of these rogue programs coming from autopia? in all honesty that was the one problem with the doozy i faced in terms of removal because it actually hijacked IE. thankfully firefox with ad block plus is supposed to prevent this from happening. apparently if you have firefox without it, the solution is MUCH easier than all of the processes required to take back IE. there is one program called gooredfix that handles redirect issues with firefox.

if i had JUST the rogue AV and nothing else, then i would have been much easier to remove IMO vs. the AV + IE hijack.

as far as what happens if you pay the ransom, they are getting the money; here is an example of one that was shut down: FBI shuts down $100 million rogue antivirus operation - FierceCIO:TechWatch

[Mindflux]

ahh, i should have been more specific - does anyone know if browsers got hijacked as a result of these rogue programs coming from autopia? in all honesty that was the one problem with the doozy i faced in terms of removal because it actually hijacked IE. thankfully firefox with ad block plus is supposed to prevent this from happening. apparently if you have firefox without it, the solution is MUCH easier than all of the processes required to take back IE. there is one program called gooredfix that handles redirect issues with firefox.

if i had JUST the rogue AV and nothing else, then i would have been much easier to remove IMO vs. the AV + IE hijack.

I don't think I got any browser hijacking because of it, but I got the malware even though I was using FF+ABP. It came through a java loader. (I hit the page, java splash screen popped up which was abnormal so I knew I was in for some bad stuff) and then WHAM that crappy fake AV popped up and my antivirus blocked some virus injections.

[trhland]

wow this thing is bad.. ive never seen sites go down longer then a half a day..

[Mindflux]

wow this thing is bad.. ive never seen sites go down longer then a half a day..

The cleanup of the virus is why it's down, not that the virus itself brought it down. They took the board offline to cleans the code of the injection points.

[jakerooni]

Well I haven't even tried going on Autopia is awhile But I figured I'd post up an update there and found out the site was all messed.. Do a quick google search and I find out this whole mess. And to see it's been down for quite awhile is a little disturbing actually. Ah well I guess. The place really wasn't as good as it used to be anyways. But since the new owners just paid a decent sum (I assume) for the site I hope they get it back up and running so they can get their ROI for the purchase.

[emaxxman]

fyi - I'm running Win7 64bit with Symantec Endpoint Protection. The fake virus detector virus got on my machine via a file that I had downloaded. I believe that is the same as the autopia.org malware.

I used malwarebytes to remove it. Worked very fast and everything is nice and clean now (I hope). Make sure you run a full scan of your PC to get all points. Now I have to figure out why Symantec didn't detect it. I may switch Avira or run some combo.

[trhland]

The cleanup of the virus is why it's down, not that the virus itself brought it down. They took the board offline to cleans the code of the injection points.

oh ok .. i know very little about these things.