Partly a warning, partly asking advice. But I was perusing the Straight Dope home page on my cell phone, as I often do, checking on my SDMB thread. And I accidentally clicked on the wrong thing, and got a nasty virus on my cell phone.
The phone part and the texting, are apparently unaffected. But the browser is gone. And I think I might have inadvertently made it worse too. It said I couldn’t leave, until I clicked on the link. Well, I certainly couldn’t leave. So I guess I took their bait.
FYI, I have an AT&T cell phone. And I did, yes, try turning the phone on and off. But as I said, I may have made it worse by downloading their antivirus software (which is what they apparently wanted me to do anyways:smack:).
Any technical advice, as well as personal stories, you could add would be appreciated.
As I said, I do still have the phone and text functions. Which is good. I might need that in an emergency. But one friend I just talked to, said I shouldn’t even use that:confused:.
Thank you all in advance for your kind words, and advice:).
That is what these scammers do. They trick you thinking you have virus. You go to web site and get many pop ups or pop ups and message that will not go away. And message will tell you to download xx or pay money and the problem will go away.
Next time shut the phone off and turn it back on and clear your history, cookies and cache before you start your browser.
The SDMB has been running these ads for at least the last six months or longer. It’s not intentional, per se – it’s not as though Ed Zotti is saying “Run more browser hijack ads!” – but there’s only so many ad hosts and they all have pretty lax standards. As soon as one ad gets taken off rotation, another pops up.
Talk to your friend about putting a browser with a good ad blocker on your phone. Some people naively believe that you don’t get malware from ads unless you’re cruising porn sites or pirating movies. Nope, all sorts of sites get malware infected ads and the only one who seriously gives a shit whether you’re infected or not is you. So look out for number one and start blocking this common malware vector.
A lot of us have been having problems with virus hijacks on this board when on mobile (not so much on desktop though). It got to the point where I don’t really use mobile for this board anymore.
But the OP is a member. Why is he getting clickable ads on the SDMB?
Make sure you’re logged in always, pages load faster on mobile anyway. Plus you’re paying for ad-free login so why wouldn’t you? I use Firefox Mobile with adblock as well, I don’t have time for mobile browser issues with ads.
He may not have it set to keep him logged in. In the above linked thread, Czarcasmreports getting hit with a hijack when he logs in on his phone. I assume Czarcasm is aware that staying logged in is an option and has his own reasons for choosing not to do so. There’s no question that the SDMB has run these ads or that it still does – I get a “Free Walmart Gift Card” hijack that is fortunately less troublesome than the old fake virus alert hijacks this place used to run.
Keeping himself logged in may help but this is really a SDMB issue and an “internet advertising at large” issue than a user error issue. The best solution is to run an ad blocker at all times. But clearing his cache and scanning for existing malware, etc is good practice as well.
There’ssomethreadsinATMBforreportingthem. The Powers That Be are aware but it’s a question of chasing the one ad, getting it pulled and then waiting for the next hijacker ad to come into the rotation and starting over. Changing the ad host doesn’t do much because there’s only a few major ad services these days (they’ve mostly consolidated) and they all pull the same shit.
If there one or two ads that have malware could the site administrator and webmaster block that add? Or the site administrator and webmaster have to block all ads? Or find other ad host?
As I understand it, websites open a portal for the ad host to push their stuff. They can block the ad host (and lose revenue) but blocking a specific ad on their end is harder. What they do is contact the ad host and say “Hey, kill this ad” and, God willing, the host removes it from the rotation in a timely fashion. Which they may do, but it invariably gets replaced by a new ad in rotation that does the same thing and the cycle begins anew.
“Find a new ad host” is like saying “Find a new cell carrier” when yours sucks. There’s only a couple and they all suck. Once upon a time, web sites used to figure their own advertising directly and had much more control. These days, everyone outsources it to the same handful of outfits and largely lets them do whatever.
Also, duh… Jim B says he got it from the Straight Dope HOME PAGE, not from the SDMB itself. Which explains the “Why did you get an ad if you’re logged in?” angle. Apparently we all collectively forgot that the Straight Dope is larger than just the forum
I’ll say it again: Ad blocker. All the sites, all the time.
My cell phone isn’t logged into the SDMB. Only my computer is.
That’s another thing. I sometimes check up on my threads. But no one realizes I did, because I am doing on my cell phone. Maybe I should log it in too. Because you do bring up some very good points.
It strange the ISP or government not gone after the hosts tell them to clean it up.
It also strange we are in year 2017 yet ads, pop ups and flash are still using old technology. Where is HTML5 or web2 or web3? With newer and safer ads and pop ups and saying goodbye to flash that is just infested with malware.
It crazy malware can come in flash, Java or pop ups or adds. Why are they using such old technology? Where is HTML5 or web2 or web3 that everyone is talking about better and safer.
Sorry I missed this before. I have no choice about logging off at work-the company policy is that anything not work related is done on a separate discreet browser that doesn’t save any info, and this browser must be closed when I leave for the night. I have to sign in every morning.
