A link on your website goes straight to a "virus page"

[h2ox]

Hi,

On page:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best...ker.htm#gifapp

there's a link:

http [ COLON ]//ivanbochko [ DOT ] com/gifapp/comment-page-1#comment-405


Clicking on this link, because I would have liked to have known why the app development stopped, took me to a page that "insisted" a virus was on my computer and I had to immediately stop the hard drive from being wiped.

What's worse is, it brings up a dialog box with an OK button (and ONLY an OK button, no cancel button) which locks you out of your web browser. For most people, that would mean HAVING to click on the OK button to get functionality back. Goodness only knows what clicking on the OK button would have done. I killed it off with Task Manager. Currently scanning for viruses as we speak...

Not going to click on it again to see if it's repeatable!


If it's of any help, this is the first time anything like this has come up, and it's the first time I've been looking at freeware/shareware programs in about 12 months. (i.e. it's unlikely to have been anything dodgy from previous web-browsing as on a business-only use computer).



On a slightly different note, I tried typing this into your "contact us" form, but no matter how many times I entered the CAPTCHA information it wouldn't work. There was a box highlighted around the email address. Not sure what's wrong with my email address, it seems to work everywhere else.

Do you require a certain length before the @ sign in the email address? If so, more than 4 characters?
Do you require letters only in the part before the @ sign in the email address?

e.g. something similar to: ab1c@hotmail.co.uk seems to be problematic!

Last time I checked, I wasn't a spambot.. though you never can tell these days!


Regards,


Martin

[MidnightCowboy]

Thank you for your feedback.

The link you refer to is no longer active (parked) so what you received was a dubious redirection which is unfortunately quite common from parked domains. We have now removed this from the product details.

Regarding the contact form we have a variety of security filters in place and it isn't possible to drill down to find out what might be causing one email address to be rejected. It is also possible that something within your own configuration or installed security software is triggering the rejection. Suffice to say we receive many contacts on a daily basis without issue.

[Anupam]

Welcome to the forum Martin .

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

Actually, the site no longer exists for the product, and the domain is up for sale. It's most likely that the domain might be infected.

However, at my end, I tried to open the link using Sandboxie (valuable tool btw), and although I did not get any virus infection message like you did, several redirects did occur, which took me to an Indian e-commerce website.

So, my guess is that most likely, the domain is infected or something. So, it's not safe.

It's good that you showed presence of mind, and averted a possible infection.

Making use of your feedback, I have now removed both the links to the site, and kept the Sourceforge link, which shows the project as abandoned.

Thank you again.

I have also obfuscated the link that you posted so that no one else gets infected accidentally.

[Anupam]

Seems like MC and myself were both editing the article to remove the link. That's why I was wondering why couldn't I see the message about Additional Information with the link on the product page.

[h2ox]

Originally Posted by Anupam

Welcome to the forum Martin .

Thank you for your valuable feedback.

Actually, the site no longer exists for the product, and the domain is up for sale. It's most likely that the domain might be infected.

However, at my end, I tried to open the link using Sandboxie (valuable tool btw), and although I did not get any virus infection message like you did, several redirects did occur, which took me to an Indian e-commerce website.

So, my guess is that most likely, the domain is infected or something. So, it's not safe.

It's good that you showed presence of mind, and averted a possible infection.

Making use of your feedback, I have now removed both the links to the site, and kept the Sourceforge link, which shows the project as abandoned.

Thank you again.

I have also obfuscated the link that you posted so that no one else gets infected accidentally.

Hi Anupam,

Thank you - that makes a lot more sense.

I will also check out Sandboxie!

And thank you for the beautiful welcome.

Have a great day!