Excessive Number of Counterfeit Sites are Getting Blocked
I started getting Yahoo surveys popping up frequently in a new tab in Firefox. Also many times when I click on a link on a website, the tab that opens is blocked as a counterfeit website. If I go back and click on the same link, eventually I will get the actual intended link. According to Tools/Options/Content I have the popup blocker turned on. This all started when I "updated Firefox" at the request of a popup (dumb, I know). My question is how to I get back to normal? I reinstalled Firefox from the Mozilla site but it didn't fix my problem. This all started about 4 days ago and may have been related to a Yahoo site hack. The "Help" tab says I am running 26.0 Firefox.
Chosen solution
Did you update Firefox because you clicked a link on a web page that told you to update?
You should never respond to such a request as this will infect you with malware.
Only update Firefox via Help > About or by downloading Firefox from the official Mozilla servers.
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender: Home Page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
All Replies (3)
Chosen Solution
Did you update Firefox because you clicked a link on a web page that told you to update?
You should never respond to such a request as this will infect you with malware.
Only update Firefox via Help > About or by downloading Firefox from the official Mozilla servers.
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.
All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
- Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php - AdwCleaner:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml - SuperAntispyware:
http://www.superantispyware.com/ - Microsoft Safety Scanner:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx - Windows Defender: Home Page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx - Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - Kasperky Free Security Scan:
http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
- Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
- "Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked
Are the problem links in Google search results? This could be a variation on the classic Google Search Redirect problem, a persistent/pernicious infection that was protected by a rootkit. Hopefully TDSSKiller (linked above) will help clean that out so you can fully resolve the issue.
As a temporary workaround, clicking the links in the Google results with the scroll wheel (middle-click), or right-click > Open in a New Tab, may bypass the redirect.
Thanks for the great list of malware detection software sources. I will hang on to it for future reference. I downloaded and ran most of them. It turns out my laptop was loaded with malicious items with a handful listed as high risk. Once I cleaned everything up I stopped getting bombarded with survey requests and other counterfeit websites. Unfortunately I was relying on nightly scans using one of the "better known" packages to screen my laptop from malicious software. Strange that it seemed to do a good job of identifying counterfeit websites but identifying malicious software not so good. The main lesson learned is to use multiple detection packages and use them often.
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