What's up with NewsMax.com?

my brain | 25th July 2009 | jblann1

[jblann1]

This has happened once before, but today it happened 3 times! I decided to pop into NewsMax.com see what's going on, and instead of going to the main page, I get a popup window stating about a possible virus attack.... yeah yeah ok, the warning was fake, but no matter how you try to click out of it, it brings up a fake "scanning files" page, so I immediately shut down the network to prevent an actual virus upload (that's how these things work--they also shut off your firewall) Did all my usual scans, everything clean. So I tried again, thinking it's just one of those freak coincidenses and again the "warning" popup and "scan" window comes up. This happened 3 times in a row. All real scans on my system (virus, spyware, malware etc...) are clean and up to date. Is it possible NewsMax has been hacked and trying to infect users trying to access the site?

[jblann1]

BTW, I have adequete software and hardware network protection, I don’t have other hackware problems occuring...

[Outlaw Woman]

just had it happen as well only I clicked out as soon as the warning popped up.

[rawhide]

No problem for me. Had a pop-up also trying to sell me some health books.

[library user]

I just went to Newsmax.com and got a strange pop-up which screamed “If you don’t show us your birth certificate in 60 seconds, we’re gonna unleash some bitchass trojans on your ass.”

I was stuned.

[OldCorps]

ping

[CdMGuy]

That happened to me yesterday at the site. It kept coming back and only stopped when I closed Internet Explorer completely. I have virus software that scans every web page before it opens. Yet, somehow, that page got through.

[nufsed]

You may have inadvertently linked to my website. hoosierdaddybama.com

[pogojones]

Same thing happened to me, three times also, two times yesterday. No more Newsmax for me.

[BARLF]

This happened to me last week. "Personal Security".

SpyBot called it a fake trojan.

[SERKIT]

Mozilla FireFox blocked it - I don’t use IE much any more.

[jblann1]

also be aware, of some of these “scanning” screens may actually ask you to click a link to download or purchase anti-virus “software” to correct the problems found in the “scan”. I didn’t let it get that far.
NewsMax is a great site, just a shame if they can’t keep the junk out, good way to lose alot of viewers.

[avant_garde]

The same thing has happened to me. Web pages such as NewsMax have a list of advertisers that they randomly load on their pages at any given time. Evidently they have a advertiser who is abusing their users. However, it is just a pop up web page using scare tactics to entice you to download their anti-virus software.

[BARLF]

I had clicked on haaretz site. It isn’t just NewsMax

[VRWCRick]

I had this happen to me once last night and again this morning on NewsMax. To top that off, I am using a Mac with the latest version (3.5.1) of Firefox.

Time to send a note to the NewsMax Web master about their security. Maybe they have been hacked. They are running a Microsoft IIS server.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Pop-ups?

I remember those.

[Deo volente]

Do you actually have to click on a link for them to start downloading a virus, or can the downloading start automatically as soon as the window pops up?

That’s what it seemed to be doing to me. I immediately quit the browser and shut down the computer to play it safe.

[JoeProBono]

[bamagirl1944]

No problem for me using Firefox

[decimon]

Mozilla FireFox blocked it - I don’t use IE much any more.

I've gotten that popup with Firefox and not at Newsmax. There's nothing to do with that popup but to close the browser. I've closed it with taskmanager.