The Technodrome is back up again!, Hopefully it will last this time...

Update: The forums are now back up on a new server, so there are no more viruses.

The site (and forums) are down right now due to repeated reports of people getting virus/trojan warnings from visiting the forums (and in one case, the site itself). At first, I thought it was just a false positive from the virus scanners of a few people, but it seems that there may be a bigger problem. So rather than leave the forums up and possibly risk further infection, I decided to close the site/forums until I can track this problem down. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, but I want to keep this place safe for everyone to visit.

If you're interested in helping speed up the process, here's what to do. There is still a way to visit the forums, but by visiting this URL, you agree that you are fully aware that there may be a virus on the site and you may be infected by it. The Technodrome staff members are not responsible for anything that happens if you visit this link. You also must agree that if you visit this URL, you will do everything you can to help track down the problem. The URL will be given at the end of this post.

In order to help, please update your virus definitions, then visit the URL below and browse as you normally would. If you get a warning from your virus scanner, please take the following steps:

• Take a screenshot of the virus warning popup. You can do this by pressing the "Print Screen" key on your keyboard, then going into Paint, Photoshop, etc. and pasting the resulting image into a new file. Please save this file.
• Post your browser's user agent. If you don't know what that is, go here and copy the text listed after "Browser:".
• Post the exact URL you visited when you got the virus warning. To do this, simply copy exactly what is in the address bar of your browser.

Once you have these three pieces of information, please post them in a reply here (or email them to me if you don't feel comfortable posting them). I need as much information as I can get in order to find out where the problem is, so please consider helping out if you can. If you have read this entire post, you may visit the forums by highlighting the text below. Thank you, and sorry once again for the inconvenience.
You may visit the site at forums.thetechnodrome.com

Alright Krang, STILL Nothing.. Two computers, Two Virus scanners, two Browsers.

IE With Norton
Firefox With Norton

IE With McAfee
FireFox with McAfee.

I really wish some kind of light could be shed on this. Maybe it's something server side, like a worm hosted by another site by the same host? (just a random thought)

Yeah, I've heard of one case where something similar happened, but the virus turned out to actually exist on the person's computer and was triggered by the appearance of iframes. If that's the case, people will get virus warnings here also, since this site also uses Google ads (which use iframes).

I was told about the virus months ago by my friend Kazari over DA

Aww I can't find the message Anyways Zone Alarm hasn't poped up telling me something is try to access my computer yet so I guess I don't have it. I also have not gotten a pop up. But Firefox blocks pop ups unless you trigger it.

Ah well good luck and if I can find that message I'll post it here.

*blinks* Months ago?! It might have been helpful if someone had spoken up about this... *sigh*


Krang, I have a screengrab of the window pop-up and the adds that showed up. I'm not sure how much its gonna help you tho...

*edit*

Alright, email sent. Hopefully it wont take three hours to get to you...

Actually, I meant a popup from your virus scanner telling you that your computer detected a virus, not a browser popup.

Yes, agreed.

Thank you, I appreciate the help. I'll check my email when I get home.

In the meantime, I've been working on setting up one of my old computers with Norton Antivirus and IE to try to reproduce the error. Once I finish all the LiveUpdates, I'll give it a try and see if I can track it down.

I must say, though, that although I appreciate the fact that people have been reporting the viruses, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of help I've received so far. If there are so many people affected by this, why won't they provide a little more information to help me solve the problem once and for all? Only two of the people who were affected by the virus have actually provided me with the information I'm looking for so far (one of them is Machias). I'm not asking for much, I just want to learn more about where this is coming from so I can remove it. None of the information I am asking for will endanger your privacy in any way.

Also, since I'm 99% sure that this only affects IE, I was possibly thinking of opening the site back up to everyone except for IE users, who would be directed here until the problem is solved. Before I do this, though, I need people who are affected by the virus to try using a different browser to see if the problem goes away. What does everyone think?

I tried with both, IE and Firefox, and I had no problems. Not at all.

I don't know if it's any help, but I'll tell you anyways. You never know...

Windows 2000 Professional
Firefox 1.0.7
Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106 SP1
AntiVir V. 6.0

Basically, yes, good idea... because that way we could get a lot of people to use Firefox or something. Lots of people don't realise how much trouble they can save themselves by using FF. Besides, FF has this awesome Favourites-toolbar and multi-tabbing.

But, if we do do that, I'd say, we tell the people where to get FF and how to install it.

Thanks for letting me know. I forgot to mention that for people who are not affected by the viruses (which is most of you), all I need to know is that you are not affected and which browser you're using (and thanks to those of you who have reported that).

Yes, definitely. I will provide links to Firefox, Mozilla Suite, SeaMonkey (the continuation of the suite which is still in testing), and Opera (which is now free). If they switch to another browser, it will solve alot of spyware and security problems, also.

i just found a virus and detected it krang

Well, I use IE (as does Storm Wolf) and never gotten any pop-ups notifying me of a viral threat. Neither did she.

I also use Firefox and Netscape on occasion and haven't seen anything out of the ordinary with those browsers, either.

If you haven't already, could you please email me the information in the first post (or post it here)?

Thanks for the help.

K.

I ran my virus scanner before logging on to the forums, and nothing came up. And then, after doing nothing on Firefox but browsing around the Technodrome forums, this came up:



Now, the Generic Downloader keeps popping up periodically. I use a special shampoo to keep it at bay. It has nothing to do with this site, just a f***ed up thing with my pc.

The other thing, though, I've never seen it before. It's brand new, and has something to do with going through my Windows Media Player, which I never use.

I get no pop ups ever as to whether or not I get viri on my pc. That's probobly something I should really check into. But yeah.

Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

I don't know if this means anything, but yeah..

Thanks, that definitely helps. It looks like it's not just something that affects IE, then. I've seen the Generic Downloader before, and I think it's just a false detection of a Java system file. But could you see what the full path to the Downloader-UE virus is?

I don't get to vist the forums often, but I haven't received any thing out of the ordinary. I'm not very technical and all I know is I use AOL8.0 if that means anything to you.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6


all over the pm's and buying stuff threads. But not a hint of badness.




sorry i couldn't be more help.

I've had a couple virus alerts for tojans on the boards maybe two weeks ago, which my virus scanner said it couldn't fix. At the time I wasn't sure what to do about it.

But since I moved into college (and the old scanner expired) I've put in a new one. Did a full system scan and nothing came up. I also haven't had any alerts while browsing the forums since.

In case that's helpful at all.

Thanks, that definitely helps. It looks like it's not just something that affects IE, then. I've seen the Generic Downloader before, and I think it's just a false detection of a Java system file. But could you see what the full path to the Downloader-UE virus is?

I deleted it, but I remember it being something like:

C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe.tmp

I've been digging aorund and I never get the alert.

I use IE 6.0, and Firefox 1.0 Preview Release

*edit* and PSP's browser, but who cares about that

this is me...Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)


I have not seen anything

Nada so far, Krang. I'll keep rooting and let you know any diffrent.