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Yeah, I know it's the Internet and you can't be sure that ANY page is safe, but ...
Today at work I was browsing on ABC News's web page (abcnews.go.com IIRC). I finished reading the article (the sad one about the paralyzed soldier who just went into a hospice to die) and then started looking through some article titles on that same page that sounded interesting. I clicked on one of them -- I THINK it was about foods you can't get any more -- and a new window opened, which was normal. I looked away for a few seconds, then when I looked back I realized the page I had clicked on wasn't opening and instead there was some weird web page listed -- a bunch of random letters. The page was blank. Of course I knew immediately that I had been redirected to a "bad" or dangerous web site, and this was confirmed when a couple of seconds later the Microsoft Security Essentials (the enterprise equivalent -- it's my college's version) disappeared from the task bar on the bottom right. Just to be sure, I went to the start menu, found the security software that normally runs 24/7, and opened it. It showed that it was not on and listed my computer as "at risk." I clicked on "start now" and it wouldn't. Then I went to control panel and tried to open the firewall. I got a message that it wasn't working. By now I had disconnected the laptop from the Internet. I called my college's help desk and the woman there gave me instructions on restoring to an earlier date, which I did and within a few minutes my computer had re-booted to a restore point of a few days ago. The security software was again working fine AND the firewall was back on -- in other words, everything looked normal again.
OK, that was a long story but it's a preface to my questions. This was a link to an article on ABC News's home page -- I mean, COME ON, shouldn't those be safe? That's one question. (BTW once my computer was OK again, I went back to ABC News's page with the soldier article and I no longer saw a link to that article ... they may just rotate them, or maybe they realized it was a link to a bad page?)
My second question is, is there any danger that whatever malicious item turned off the security software and firewall, is still there, even though I am now at an earlier point? The help desk person said no, it should be fine, but I am very annoyed that this happened and want to make sure my computer is OK. (I'll be going back in early tomorrow ... I left it running with a full scan.)
Nothing is safe, legit websites get compromised all the time.
There's always a chance it might still be there, it depends on the specific infection. If you don't notice the same symptoms you're likely ok, just keep an eye on it. I would also suggest running Malwarebytes if your IT people allow it.
I was on a news site in IE recently (I normally run FF with adblock), and clicked a "news story" about car insurance at the bottom of the page. It linked me out to a car insurance price comparison web site. I went back to the original page and realized that there was a block of adds on the page that had been carefully styled to look like the story links on that page.
Thanks for the replies. It was definitely a news story that I clicked on, not an ad -- I have actually found the news story elsewhere (but haven't clicked on any of those links).
When I got to campus this morning, I saw that the scan had successfully completed. It removed several trojans (all variations of trojan:Win32/sirefef). They had clearly been loaded when I clicked on that web page, as they had not been detected by the same security program earlier. I just did a search to get more info on that trojan and it looks like if it were still on my computer, I would notice it.
What a pain!! Thanks again for replying, I will rep you both!
Lots of sites nowadays have links to news stories at the bottom of an article, some of which go to stories on the same site, and some which open to a different site. I can usually tell which ones are which, but not always. If in doubt, don't click on one.
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They had clearly been loaded when I clicked on that web page, as they had not been detected by the same security program earlier. I just did a search to get more info on that trojan and it looks like if it were still on my computer, I would notice it.
