Annoying virus :(
If you're on Internet Explorer, you may be seeing warnings about a virus when you attempt to see Cute Overload.com. A virus appeared on this site about a week ago, and we've been trying to fight it, but have not killed it yet.
Thank you for all your notes and concern. Please know that we are working on killing it, but it's an elusive little bugger.
We will follow up with more news ASAP, and in the meantime thank you for your patience...
"Common Cold" from Giant Microbes.com!
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Good thing I'm using Firefox, then :)
cootest rhinovirus i ever seeded :)
These folks have everything plush and microbial! Check out the STD section! OMG!!!
This explains why I'm so sleepy; caught a virus from teh Qte.
Haven't gotten an info box.......
I have a hilarious picture of "viruses" from some medical magazine taped to my CPU to protect me from those nasty buggers.
Have you tried Holy Water or Oil?
A VooDoo priest/priestess intervention?
Loud swearing accompanied by much kicking of ther= server?
Good Luck! hat dem virooses. FWIW, I have not seen any problemas; we have intense anti virus stuff on home & werk comps tho.
Hopefuly,
The virus wasn't that "plug-in for Real Player" that just popped up here for me to install. Yikes! I told it okay
*needs reassurance*
My Firefox shows it (and kills it) whenever it pops up, but IE at work doesn't. Oops.
Yay for Safari! I heart my iMac. Now I can enjoy CO uninterrupted! ^_^
Good luck! Stupid virus... :-S
virus - iz no kewt.
The virus is called "bloodhound exploit." Those poor bloodhounds! How much longer must they be exploited!
I'm not sure if this tongue/cheek or if there was a real virus or what??!! I'm skeered of them.
LOL cutest virus I ever saw.
Too bad about the CO virus... SO far I have no warnings. but We have excellent coverage of our computer at home and my work one. so sooo far soooo goood.
I had noticed that whenever I come to the site, all I get is the background until I hit reload and then everything is fine. I'm using Firefox.
i use IE at work, but i've never received anything...did i bug everyone in the company for loving the qte?
I managed to get it on my work laptop.. oops :) It's now having to be reformatted next week as it's left a load of rubbish on the laptop, double oops!!
For me, the virus or whatever activates my ActiveX dialog box at the top of the IE window and says something about Remote Services. So I just don't do anything.
I thought I'd picked it up from a porn site, but now that I think about it...
Spyware Doctor helped a lot, but yes, it was a pain to remove totally. Lots of fake executables, .dll's, and registry entries. Had to trace down processes to see where they came from and what they were doing.
IF that's it, that is.
If anyone finds out how to get rid of this without reformatting, please let me know! Both the boy and I caught it and he can't reformat his computer due to school stuff!
I have "mono" from this collection...it's purple and has eyes with pretty lashes. I keep it on my desk at work and people always do a double take and ask "what IS that?"
omg! my science teacher had those last year!
heh. my family has a whole collection of these,and my mom brings them out every christmas (of course). they are fun to throw at each other.
Well, I'll have to check my work machine. It was acting rather odd last week. Serves them right for being addicted to Microsoft.
Cassie have boy get a memory stick and copy his stuff onto it. THen you can reformat the computer and after you are sure you have up to date virus protection on your computer scan docs on memory stick to be sure it is clear and then down load it to your newly formated computer.
Would now be a good time to point out how cute Tux the Linux penguin mascot is?
This is how you get rid of "bloodhound":
http://www.pchell.com/virus/bloodhound.shtml
I would guess that a CO virus would be floofy, blue, with BEF, knobbular knees and lots of chub.
Yeah, I noticed it coming up from my Norton Auto-Protect. I was just about to send you guys an e-mail about it!! Hope you can get!!
This bug is REAL.
I believe I was infected on 12/12/07 (judging by subsequent logs), but did not really start noticing problems until the 14th (my AVG started throwing up warnings at me).
I do NOT know what this thing is, or what exactly it is supposed to do, but my initial experience was exactly that of cboone21's (the Active X dialog pops up wanting you to download Remote Svs or something from "Microsoft Corporation"). I did NOT authorize the download of anything, did not click the box in any way. IE would then hang, and I would close it. The fact that I never acknowledged the ActiveX bar (which in my totally un-computer-professional opinion is a cleverly designed fake) did not seem to make a difference; SOMEthing got through AVG and took up residence on my system. Subsequent visits to the site (on 12/14) involved the same fake ActiveX download request, and upon "loading" the page (note that it never actually loads when you do that) AVG started catching things that got through. Among the things it caught and identified: Packed.morphine.d, Obustat.ACRR, backdoor.rbot.avm, Trojan Horse Dropper.Generic. After a short time, I did not have to load a webpage for AVG to start catching these things-they seemed to float in from nowhere.
Anyway, I got it by merely visiting the site. The ActiveX thing seems to only happen when I type in the URL cuteoverload.com and wait for the redirect to mfrost.typepad.com/etc. AVG resident shield was "mostly" up-to-date at the time (latest definitions, wasn't the latest build-then), SpywareBlaster was up-to-date, Microsoft security updates were all installed, and somehow just by typing in a URL I got a whole bunch of ACK. (On a related note, I experienced the same thing on my work computer my last day of work, 12/11/07...the ActiveX thing, "threat detected" etc. But I'm on vacation so I guess it's the IT guy's problem).
This post was made to warn others that this is REAL. I love cuteoverload, and do not blame the site owners in any way for this. I am currently hunting down a "contact" button to submit my hijackthis logs (and other logs) should they help identify the problem.
IE7 users: in your browser bar click on tools, manage add-ons, enable or disable add-ons, and look under Add-ons currently loaded into Internet Explorer. If you see something there that you do NOT RECOGNIZE, is unidentified (will have a long number, and in the right hand column there will be a random 8-letter file ending with .dll, then you got this thing too. Be aware that it is NASTY and you will likely need specialized tools or help to get rid of it. IF you do have it, expect your antivirus program to start screaming at you that it is detecting threats left and right. This bug seems to attempt to download more and more bugs, among other things.
Doggone it, make that a 9-letter .dll file (at least mine was).
Is that why the site has been incredibly slow for me lately? I try to load it (I only use Firefox for general browsing), my entire system hangs, then it "loads", completely blank until I refresh.
I know there's stuff out there for firefox, but thank god I use it. I haven't had problems like these in ages! (Long live the nerds!)
meg, isn't it nice to know all us Cuteologists have your back? DEFEND THE QTE!
I am utterly astonished at the fact that this site is up and running even as you're positively sure that it is infected! Seriously!
I have NOD32 that warned me Friday (I think) and I gave you until now to fix it. I did not have your e-mail adress and I was not going to get in here again to tell you about it. I thought it was something you would have fixed by now, and if not, that you would have closed the site until you had. I got the bar on top now too, but my AV didn't say anything more about it. Do I have this crap now?! If I do... my god. I don't know what I will do, I don't have the time to put a whole day to reformatting it. Honestly, how serious are you, meaningly infecting peoples comps with really vicious stuff. THANKS A LOT! I'll never be back again. You're f***ing crazy!
Well, I'm feeling pretty smug about not using IE right now. IE, the gift that keeps on giving.
Bought a cold, a brain cell and E-Coli as Christmas presents!
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FIREFOX, FIREFOX FIREFOX!!!
Good luck with the bug, Meg. I noticed I was having problems opening your page, even with the lovely and talented Mozilla product.
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Well, that explains the whole "blank screen until I refresh" thing that's been going on for a week or so. I'm glad I use FireFox, and I'm glad I downloaded AVG right away (and keep it up to date) when I got my new computer a couple months back.
As for the microbes, I used to date a doctor so I gave him Gonorrhea for his birthday. I've never seen someone enjoy getting The Clap so much.
And Maria, I'm pretty sure Meg & Teho aren't maliciously infecting everyone's computers with bugs. No need to call them crazy. It's the internet, viruses happen.
Here is Symantec's writeup on the browser exploit:
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2007-121117-2716-99
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2007-121117-2716-99
Oops double post. :\ Site errored the first time.
ummm, maria? settle down and keep the profanity off the Qte. if you were so worried about contamination why would you even post something here. (you don't have to answer that.) sheesh.
get well soon, co. i am sending tissues and echinacea.
BAHAHAHAHA! Awesome! I ordered the syphilis plush for my boyfriend a few days ago. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
I suppose that explains why CO was taking forever to load (in Firefox, woo!) for the past few days. I thought either my connection or my computer was being wonky (both being equally likely), but apparently not.
Get well soon, CO. I don't know what I'd do without you.
I'm using firefox, and I've been having it load blank and then load properly when I hit refresh. Was wondering why it kept doing that. Thank God I'm not using IE!
Hey Patty P,
You're probably OK, but never, ever, ever trust a plug-in for real player or any other media player you get off of a website. If you need a particular plug-in for something, find out which one it is and go to the original site for that plug-in and hope the creator is someone you can trust. This applies even if you have a mac (which I do), as some of the plug-in exploits can even effect that platform. The internet is the new wild-west. You really can't be too cautious.
Nule
for those using firefox, i would also suggest a plugin called "No Script" - you can do a goggle search. it blocks any "scripts" from running on webpages -- you can control what is safe or not safe, universally block all scripts, etc. and also temporarily allow scripts per each website you visit.
i am glad i have it, firefox and AVG.
now to check out flu/virus plushies !
*sigh* - "google" -- p.s. it also blocks popups!