As you may have seen, we had to take VentnorBlog down for a short while this morning for your safety.
A pesky trouble-maker had managed to attack our server in the early hours and place some malicious files on it.
Although we run many methods of catching these people, every now and again they get through. Unfortunately today was an example of that.
The intention of these malicious files was to trick the user into clicking on a warning to scan their machine for viruses. This software then does a fake ‘virus scan’ of your machine, pretending to find all sort of horrible things on it, then asks you for money to pay to have it cleaned up. Sometimes these bits of software also actually infect your machine.
From time-to-time this occurs on even the best and biggest of sites, but as you’d expect, VB takes the open approach of letting you know it’s happened. Many sites don’t.
Always run Anti-malware software
Some VB readers were alerted to the problem by anti-virus software they have installed and running on their machines, thus avoiding any risk to their computer.
We use and recommend using two levels anti-malware software. On our PCs we use a combination of Malwarebytes and Avast, which to date has worked for us. Other people use AVG.
If you don’t have that kind of software on your PC already, it’s definitely worth doing.
Upgrade your browser
If you are using a Microsoft Web-browser (we know that many of our readers do), we would strongly recommend either upgrading IE, or switching to something safer such as Firefox or Google Chrome, which are free and many feel are safer.
Update 11:59 25.Nov.11: Altered Browser recommendation on
advice of Josh D.
Image: Rhett Maxwell under CC BY 2.0
