I megapit malware sites!

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay, pitting malware sites is up there with pitting that Schickelgruber guy, but…

I am doing some research that involves poking into far-fringe sites, and I hit one that seemed to be just an empty page - a title, nothing more. So I left it there while I wrote some material.

Alla sudden, my computer is blaring warnings at me about how my system is damaged and I need to run this protection tool and how I could call them immediately to help save my system and restore my ability to connect to the internet…

Fuck, I nearly crapped my pants. I use Chrome for my research window and it would NOT close either the tab or the browser. I whammed open Task Manager and killed it, and searched quickly for malware processes, and ran a full scan. All seems clear.

But fuck me if that’s not a moment I want to grab some fucker’s neck and squeeze until his head pops off.

2

It’s important to always use protection when you’re “doing research” on the Internet.

3

I have found out that Chrome is not so good in protecting its home page and settings (I have seen also some exploits do that on Firefox too), while many cleaners will do a good job of removing malware the problem is that the settings of the browser have been changed so the issue can pop up again when a new window or a new tab are used.

This is because regarding the settings the anti-malware cleaners many times do not change those settings back to the original default because in theory you are the one setting them up.

Instructions to reset the defaults in Chrome are here:

I have also seen malware do a number on Linux browsers too because the settings of the home page and tabs is very similar or the same across operating systems. While it is less likely that malware can infect the OS of a Linux machine it can still make a browser almost useless so even in a Linux machine I use script blockers on the browsers.

4

“HOLY SHIT YOUR COMPUTER IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE OMG !!1!” fake popups you get when surfing dodgy parts of the net are actually designed to make you click the “This is your one and only chance to get rid of it !” button. Which proceeds to install Nurgle himself on your system drive.
So, yes, you had the correct response : just close the window from the systray (because the “cancel” button is of course also a trap, as is the upper right X) and forget about it.