Ah, so that's what happened. My work computer got heavily infected. What was hilarious was that our dumb IT person said, "Well, you really shouldn't be going to hacker sites here at work." I said, "Hacker sites? What 'hacker sites?'"
He said, "The site you got the malware from: Lifehacker."
Was this you? My computer was seized by malware yesterday. I assumed, however, that it was from a typically sketchy TV-streaming website. Windows kept popping up, file permissions were being asked (and denied). Out of nowhere, a Windows Ultimate Defender virus tried to trick me into believing it to be a genuine piece of the OS*. A few safe mode/boot-up antivirus runs later, and Microsoft 7 was junked-- I could no longer log in, and the whole OS needed a fresh install.
Here I am now, on my Ubuntu Linux partition, until the day that I feel like re-engaging in that ass-ache of a re-installation process.
*-I don't think I've seen a genuine piece of obvious malware on my computer since those heady days of 2003-- Windows XP/KaZaa/Limewire What a time warp. Thank you, Gawker. #gawkermedia
So... there was phone conversation? Were they talking from a throw-away cellphone? And what do they gain? Just poison Gawker so that people won't want to come hang out here? Anyone look carefully at the behaviour of the malware to see what it was doing? #gawkermedia
@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: Yes, I was wondering this too. I suppose most Gawker readers to be broke-ass and can't really imagine how or what malware scammers would hope to gain. #gawkermedia
I am thinking about giving up on journalism and going back into IT, but what keeps me from pulling the trigger is my dread of the viral crap that fools in sales and marketing seem inevitably drawn to, like flies to a carcass. Those people can be dumber than dirt, or as one of my bosses once put it: "C students selling to C students."
And sales execs wonder why there's a demand for ad-blocking software... sheesh. #gawkermedia
@Cynical Media Bitch: You might want to stay in journalism, lol. I'm in IT and every once in a while I'm forced to deal with folks that surf where they shouldn't or download some crap without knowing the ramifications. I'm left taking their hard drive out the laptop/tower and running at least three scans on it. My first is with Malwarebytes. The second with Microsoft Forefront. The third is running a chkdsk /r on it. If I'm inclined I'll do a defrag on it and leave it running overnight. It works about 95% of the time If all else fails I whip out my handy dandy Combo fix application and nuke what's left. After doing all this I may be wiped out mentally but look at the incident as job security. #gawkermedia
@UGAdawg: At least what you're describing is pretty much set-it-and-forget-it. What I'm not sure I want to do anymore is to spend two or three days chasing interviews and doing research for a 1000-word article that pays (if anything) 10¢/word, when I know that I'm going to have to wait months for that check to show up in my mailbox. #gawkermedia
Can you disclose which sites the ads ran on and during what time so I can decide how badly I need to check my work computer and maybe save myself a yelling?
@o-line: I'm not affiliated with Gawker, but: Friday morning-noon Pacific time. Some sort of attack that exploits Adobe PDF plugin. I'm sorry I don't have a details, but my kitchen computer again proved immune. It just reminded me to quit slacking and go to the office.
But I'm still interested about the current veneral disease protocol in big cities of the USA. #gawkermedia
@Spy from the Land of Rainpeople: OK, I actually went to my kitchen computer and checked. For me it was 9:32am Pacific on Friday. The URL was wbavv.com/docs/bh.pdf. After a quick look it was some sort of Javascript in PDF attack, to which my machine is immune.
Hopefully this info will help some people.
But I still have to bemoan the slippage of the ethics standards in NY. Sometime last century I let some marketing executive share my umbrella and let her dry her clothes is my hotel room. Afterwards she was kind enough to leave me a detailed message on exactly what kind of bloodwork I should run. #gawkermedia
@o-line: I got it from Jezebel. Twice. Once in the morning, and once in the early afternoon.
I think you would know if you had it though. My computers were pretty much immediately incapacitated. I hope my work can fix the computers and don't have to investigate too much because I'd rather not have them block Gawker network. #gawkermedia
man this thing crippled my office computer. i'm still trying to get rid of it. it won't let me install malwarebytes since i don't have administrative access. #gawkermedia
@ohgee: Fucked my office comp up real good too. I.T. spent the better part of the morning fixing me up, and I caught the third degree something fierce. And the whole time I'm thinking "It couldn't possibly have been a Gawker site..." #gawkermedia
Everything about it feels dirty, including a page of adblock and flashblock divs. All the time, energy and effort that goes into scrounging a few million bucks profit out of what would have been a massive publishing empire a few years ago.
Also, I will never buy a Suzuki anyway. #gawkermedia
10/27/09
He said, "The site you got the malware from: Lifehacker."
Duh. #gawkermedia
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
Here I am now, on my Ubuntu Linux partition, until the day that I feel like re-engaging in that ass-ache of a re-installation process.
*-I don't think I've seen a genuine piece of obvious malware on my computer since those heady days of 2003-- Windows XP/KaZaa/Limewire What a time warp. Thank you, Gawker. #gawkermedia
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/26/09
10/27/09
Me too. I got two days off out of it! #gawkermedia
10/26/09
And sales execs wonder why there's a demand for ad-blocking software... sheesh. #gawkermedia
10/26/09
10/26/09
10/26/09
10/26/09
But I'm still interested about the current veneral disease protocol in big cities of the USA. #gawkermedia
10/26/09
Hopefully this info will help some people.
But I still have to bemoan the slippage of the ethics standards in NY. Sometime last century I let some marketing executive share my umbrella and let her dry her clothes is my hotel room. Afterwards she was kind enough to leave me a detailed message on exactly what kind of bloodwork I should run. #gawkermedia
10/26/09
I think you would know if you had it though. My computers were pretty much immediately incapacitated. I hope my work can fix the computers and don't have to investigate too much because I'd rather not have them block Gawker network. #gawkermedia
10/26/09
Because that was the best part.
10/26/09
10/26/09
10/26/09
Everything about it feels dirty, including a page of adblock and flashblock divs. All the time, energy and effort that goes into scrounging a few million bucks profit out of what would have been a massive publishing empire a few years ago.
Also, I will never buy a Suzuki anyway. #gawkermedia
10/26/09
05/18/09
05/18/09
05/17/09