Photobucket virus alert

bco_admin3 · January 2010

bco_admin3 · January 2010

Dear Online Community members,

Unfortunately, we have received word that Photobucket, a third party site that we recommend using to save images that you wish to insert into a message online: http://community.breastcancer.org/help#add_image

is currently experiencing virus issues. Although I have been unable to find any updates or information on the Photobucket website itself, several sources are reporting the following information:

Clicking into your photobucket account will start a rogue program, antispywareprolivescan, which will attempt to not only scan your computer but also download and install a rogue virus Antispyware 2009.

Until further information is known, we strongly recommend against accessing the Photobucket site or an account that you may have with them. I will post any updated information as soon as I become aware of it.

Best Regards,
Niki

Niki Konkoly
Breastcancer.org Support
webmaster@breastcancer.org

GramE · January 2010

This is a safe site to check YOUR computer against the threat of virus, trojan horses, etc:

http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/home.asp?langid=ie&venid=sym&plfid=10&pkj=RDGZRXLZNSNGGOQXHMU

Symantec makes several kinds of virus/security programs that you can install on your computers.

Edited to add: I have NO affiliation with Symantec except as a customer.

otter · January 2010

Rats. Anyone know if this is a Windows-specific problem, or will it affect Macs, too?

otter

Ezscriiibe · January 2010

I have tried to investigate this and the possibility it is a hoax, which is highly likely, but have not be able to substantiate any claims one way or the other.

From time to time similar virus/photobucket hoaxes pop up, the last one being as far back as 2008, I believe.

I would personally like to see from what "sources" this warning is coming.

I use a MAC, too, so it's not as likely a target, but I would still like more verification before I stop using my photobucket account.

bco_admin3 · January 2010

Hi all,

To provide a bit of clarification, this issue was reported to me by a Boards member. I have also been trying to investigate the issue further and have thus far been able to arrive at any definitive information/answers. I will report back as soon as I have any updated information.

Sincerely,

Niki

bco_admin3 · January 2010

In the latest response from the Boards member who reported the issue, the following was reported:

The virus is intentionally planted as a "trojan" as a marketing scam and brings in a package that locks up the computor until you buy their antispy-ware and anti-virus program. But by then the files are corrupted.

It came in on "URL" from Photobucket - name seems to be "Rogue-AntiSpyware Security 2010" and rogue "Antispyware Internet Security 2010." with three layers of Trojans (fake alert); Generic and Proxy agent.

GramE · January 2010

I found this discussion of some of the "details" and which operating systems were vulnerable.

http://www.phantomgerry.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13830&f=5

It appears to be fixed for now.

Anonymous · January 2010

Thanks so much for the added clarification. I am one of the members who was "hit" on Saturday and talked to BC.org. I had a friend who is a computor geek with the government drop in the very first photo I have ever done, into my text. The photo was stored (as suggested) in photobucket. I had never heard of photobucket nor ever used it before. The Super Spyware 2010 virus came in on the URL when we downloaded the photo to the BC.org site. We just sat there and watch my computor fry! I have never had this happen to me before-I am a professional photog and I send work all over the world and have done on this computer for a decade. Never any problems until the minute we inserted the URL from the Photobucket site. The "crash" was immediate. I had to bring in my personal computer geek today (over 5 hours and $300 and lost pix and data) and he also believes it came in on that URL. It may be that I somehow did something else wrong to bring this curse down on me-but I am checking thoroughly still. It got past my Norton and AVG programs as a "ghost" i.e., my software did not detect the virus at all. Had to get new software. I hope I was just a fluke-but I am very clear on what we were doing when the virus hit. SV

djd · January 2010

This thread caught my attention. I have quit using anti-virus software because it consumes so much memory and negatively impacts the performance of the PC.

What I do HIGHLY recommend is downloading the FREE Spybot Search and Destory software at

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html

it is not intrusive at all, and it will scan your computer and find stuff long before McAfee or Symantic. My company recommends it when a trojan finds its way onto a hard drive. It also has an "immunize" feature, which will help keep your computer safe.

And, like I said, it's free, but they do provide a link if you want to make a donation.

Anonymous · January 2010

AVAST is another reliable, free program. I've been using it for about a year and have had no problems.

http://www.avast.com/index

bco_admin3 · February 2010

Hi all,

We received the following message from a Photobucket Customer Support Manager:

We’ve already received contacts from our user through our official support channel (support@photobucket.com) alerting us to the possible threat, that may or may not be due to a compromised ad content running via one of the ad networks that run ads on our site. We are diligently working to identify and isolate the threat if it is indeed running on our site.

Feel free to let your users know that we are actively working on this and apologize for any inconvenience. Also, what we are asking all users who want to assist in this is to try to take a screenshot and/or view-source of the exact page they were/are on when the malware is first identified by their cpu, security programs, etc. This is especially crucial if it is indeed a compromised ad in the ad network running on our site. Nevertheless, we know this is a bit difficult as most people aren’t going to want to reproduce a situation that may have put their computers in jeopardy. At the very least, we have found this free program, http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
to be very effective in removing malware from computers.

We will follow up if and when we receive any additional updates from Photobucket.

Best Regards,

Niki

bco_admin3 · February 2010

Hi everyone,

We received the following update today from a Photobucket Representative:

We think we’ve identified, isolated, and removed the malware threat from our site. With some help from our users, we identified some compromised ad-copy running on one of the ad-networks that operate on our site. We have since contacted the ad network as well as ended the specific campaign whose ads they belonged to. We are now currently reaching out to users who have contacted us as well as internally, in trying to rule out any other malicious activity or content running on the ad-networks that operate on Photobucket. Please let your users know that before they navigate on the Photobucket site that they may want to first do the following:

1. Fully log out of your Photobucket account.
2. Clear out your browsers cache (http://photobucket.com/faq?catID=57&catSelected=f&topicID=440)
3. Clear out your browsers cookies (http://photobucket.com/faq?catID=57&catSelected=f&topicID=441)
4. Close your browser
5. Restart your browser and log in to Photobucket.com

*Note it may be advisable also to do a fresh reinstall of whatever browser you frequently also. (e.g. Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer)

If there are anymore malware threats or anything noticed on our site, feel free to have users contact us at support@photobucket.com for further assistance.

Best Regards,

Niki

Photobucket virus alert

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