Fake YouTube pages used to spread viruses

AP , Yahoo ^ | Wed Oct 8, 4:48 PM ET | JORDAN ROBERTSON,

[slag]

SAN FRANCISCO - Savvy Internet users know that downloading unsolicited computer programs is one of the most dangerous things you can do online. It puts you at great risk for a virus or another time bomb from a hacker. But even some sophisticated surfers could get taken in by a sneaky new attack in which criminals create fake YouTube pages — dead-on replicas of the real site — to push their malicious software and make it look like it's safe stuff coming from a trusted source.

[slag]

This could affect us here with newbies posting YouTube links - like See this Palin video - that has a virus attached.

[txroadkill]

They are just putting that out there because they are freaking out that my CNN Obama Ayers video has over 150,000 views in 48 hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvROBLortBQ

 

[housemouse 1]

well, if it’s true, it’s still good to know.

[quickquiver]

IMHO the video of Obomba campaigning for the Communists and street thugs in Kenya and the aftermath of that activity is much more damaging.

[sageb1]

Yep.

[brityank]

I don’t recall seeing any of these for any YouTubes I’ve looked at, but I have run into something similar on news pages and other sites; have to download some additional program before the thing will play. No thanks; if my Firefox and WMP won’t play it — go screw.

[djf]

Any good freebie virus scanners out there? I’ve been using AVG and have all the updates, but sometimes I get suspicious that it is not as thorough as it might be.

[JoJo Gunn]

ping

[EggsAckley]

For years I've made it a point to NOT go to links from n00bs. There were a few incidents of a virus or Trojan brought in by the n00b’s links.

Thanks for reminding me.

[backhoe]

Any good freebie virus scanners out there? I’ve been using AVG and have all the updates, but sometimes I get suspicious that it is not as thorough as it might be.

Try this one:

-http://www.malwarebytes.org/--

FWIW, I've also had Avast! catch a few things AVG missed-- and AVG is certainly well-recommended, it's what the local PC guru installs on all the machines he sells.

[ConservativeMind]

Look into this:

http://free-av.com/

Independent testing here:

http://av-comparatives.org/

[backhoe]

Thanks!