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Virus?

I was thinking of making a new thread but this one works just as well.

I was gone for a day or so because my computer got ANOTHER virus from Bulbapedia. This time, it was a fake security system and it took a day to get rid of it.

I'd appreciate it if you tried to get rid of the virus so that other people don't have the problems that I do but I'm afraid that bulbapedia isn't safe for my computer anymore.

Am I the only person having this problem??
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

If there's a virus in our ads, then the best way to avoid it is to log in, as we don't have ads for logged in members.

We have notified our ad networks, and they are doing all they can to track this down, but it's not something Bulbagarden has any direct control over other than to perhaps dump this ad network.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Archaic said:
If there's a virus in our ads, then the best way to avoid it is to log in, as we don't have ads for logged in members.

We have notified our ad networks, and they are doing all they can to track this down, but it's not something Bulbagarden has any direct control over other than to perhaps dump this ad network.
Click to expand...
Personally, I would have done that the first time this happened. Not the tenth :/
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Dumping the ad network? Now that's just unreasonable Joe. We notified them after the first event, but you can't expect an instant solution to something like this. There's a constant arms race between virus writers and those in anti-virus security. This is no different. If one ad network has had its security compromised, likely all have been.
 
Buzz said:
I was thinking of making a new thread but this one works just as well.

I was gone for a day or so because my computer got ANOTHER virus from Bulbapedia. This time, it was a fake security system and it took a day to get rid of it.

I'd appreciate it if you tried to get rid of the virus so that other people don't have the problems that I do but I'm afraid that bulbapedia isn't safe for my computer anymore.

Am I the only person having this problem??
Click to expand...
YES. YES. YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

I had to reinstall my OS because of this. Lost about 118 GB of data.
 
Buzz said:
I was gone for a day or so because my computer got ANOTHER virus from Bulbapedia. This time, it was a fake security system and it took a day to get rid of it.

...

Am I the only person having this problem??
Click to expand...

My sister had one of these on her laptop. I'm 99% sure she did not get it from Bulbapedia. It came up saying the computer had been infiltrated by a person using IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (which I later discovered actually belonged to NASA).
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Archaic said:
Dumping the ad network? Now that's just unreasonable Joe. We notified them after the first event, but you can't expect an instant solution to something like this. There's a constant arms race between virus writers and those in anti-virus security. This is no different. If one ad network has had its security compromised, likely all have been.
Click to expand...
It's not that unreasonable Liam. A good ad agency makes sure the ads don't happen. I have received no ads piggybacking off of the Google ads on my site. The time the site got hit with a virus was due to an attack which caused one to get embedded in my router which managed to get the encrypted FTP details and fed them to a script which injected a line of code into index.shtml and other related pages.

Telling people to log in so they don't get it is somewhat irresponsible Liam. If a virus was piggybacking off of ads onto my site, the first thing I'd do is remove the ads, even if it's being investigated, so that there is no risk of infection at all. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of the visitors to both of our sites don't log in so that's not a viable response to this issue. Yes, it'll cut money in the shortterm, but in the longterm it protects people and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Joe, if all you have to contribute to this issue is bragging about how it hasn't happened to you/How Liam should cut his left arm to save people and you would not hesitate to cut your nail if it came to that/how much better than Liam you are...

It's trolling. Quite possibly advertisement too. Both of which are infractable. So quit it before you annoy me into doing something about it.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Serebii said:
Telling people to log in so they don't get it is somewhat irresponsible Liam. If a virus was piggybacking off of ads onto my site, the first thing I'd do is remove the ads, even if it's being investigated, so that there is no risk of infection at all. You know as well as I do that the vast majority of the visitors to both of our sites don't log in so that's not a viable response to this issue. Yes, it'll cut money in the shortterm, but in the longterm it protects people and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
Click to expand...

This is irresponsible, how? By telling somebody a solution to help avoid a virus without dumping a whole network? You can say it's simple to dump your ads, because you only have Google powered ads, and then a WoW ad. It's not that hard to keep viruses out of those when one of them is sponsored by Blizzard, and the others are hand-picked by Google.
 
Buzz said:
I was thinking of making a new thread but this one works just as well.

I was gone for a day or so because my computer got ANOTHER virus from Bulbapedia. This time, it was a fake security system and it took a day to get rid of it.

I'd appreciate it if you tried to get rid of the virus so that other people don't have the problems that I do but I'm afraid that bulbapedia isn't safe for my computer anymore.

Am I the only person having this problem??
Click to expand...

You aren't the only person having this. I just got that one yesterday, in fact, but I don't know if I got it from here or somewhere else. Either way, I removed it quickly.

'Course, I'm not sure where I got it, but I got one sounding just like the one you mentioned. With the fake security system.

Also, to fix the Internet Explorer proxy thing (I dunno if you already fixed that or not,) go to tools, internet options, click on connections, and click on LAN settings. There should be a check on there next to "Use proxy settings for LAN settings." Uncheck that, and it'll start working again.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Evil Figment said:
Joe, if all you have to contribute to this issue is bragging about how it hasn't happened to you/How Liam should cut his left arm to save people and you would not hesitate to cut your nail if it came to that/how much better than Liam you are...

It's trolling. Quite possibly advertisement too. Both of which are infractable. So quit it before you annoy me into doing something about it.
Click to expand...
That is the most flimsy argument I have ever heard come out of you. I'm offering my advice as a friend here and it most certainly isn't advertising nor is it trolling.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Serebii does make some good points. By leaving the ads up, we are not only hurting our reputation, but more importantly, we are hurting our readers. If ads are giving readers viruses, we should remove all suspect ads (or even all of them) until the issue is resolved.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Joe - "Friend of this site", and you're the one talking about flimsy arguments? You have never been made yourself a friend to this site, and attacking Archaic's decision on this case in public is certainly not the actions of a friend.

To others: we're aware Joe's suggestion sound sensible. Unfortunately, like so many other simple solutions, they're not really possible to implement. At least not as a "panic button" sort of answer.
 
Loveon said:
You aren't the only person having this. I just got that one yesterday, in fact, but I don't know if I got it from here or somewhere else. Either way, I removed it quickly.

'Course, I'm not sure where I got it, but I got one sounding just like the one you mentioned. With the fake security system.
Click to expand...

The fake security system ones have been around for a long time. I used to get them on deviantArt and a bunch of other places, but they all eventually cracked down. This is the first I've heard of it for at least half a year.

SnorlaxMonster said:
Serebii does make some good points. By leaving the ads up, we are not only hurting our reputation, but more importantly, we are hurting our readers. If ads are giving readers viruses, we should remove all suspect ads (or even all of them) until the issue is resolved.
Click to expand...

That's where the problem is, because if none of them are suspect, all of them are.
 
Okay, having checked with Archaic (who may be along later with extra details)

Bulbagarden doesn't have the kind of profit margin that would allow us to take away the ads. It's that simple. In order to keep running at reasonable performances, we need more than twice as many servers as Serebii has, and we need the ads to pay those bills.

Taking down the ads is not an available panic button, because the likely result for us is taking down the site.

And we're pretty sure Joe know this.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Would switching from the banner ads to the Google ads do anything? Those are safer, but from what I've heard, they're a pain to code. Of course, the site I was looking on said nothing about how much money they make.
 
Re: Virus? (Updated with Another Virus)

Google ads would not cover our hosting bills, they would bring in substantially less. It's not an option for a long term solution. At most, we might turn on Google ads while we transitioned to a new ad network, but even that is somewhat stretching it.
 
Please note: The thread is from 13 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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