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warning about a potential problem username

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited January 2023 in Help Desk
Hey everyone

This is just a heads up and could be something that's already been dealt with, but just wanted to make folks on here and mods and admins aware.

There's a potential problem with someone called 'kanewebber' or 'kaneweber' joining up on internet forums and sending seemingly innocent PMs probably titled 'New Year' or something similar to users, within the PM there will be malicious material or possibly a link to a malicious site which could infect your PC. If this person has joined and send you a PM please don't open it, delete it straightaway and make someone on here aware...

It's happened on a few forums now, and some folks have been caught out with it.

Just to let folks know.

Thanks

Cavegirl
xx

Just thought I'd pop a post in here to let people know.
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Thanks for the heads up, i've passed my message onto my other forums.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A kaneweber joined here on 7th January.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I've just searched for both names on Google and it seems whatever message board they are signed up with they haven't posted any messages.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hiya

    Yep, the person doesn't post messages on forums etc - they use the personal message systems on the boards to send malicious messages or malicious links to people with potential viruses in them that will attack their PCs.

    Love cavey
    xx
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    I wonder how it's possible to send a virus or anything like it through a messaging service that can only send pure text.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I wonder how it's possible to send a virus or anything like it through a messaging service that can only send pure text.
    through a link
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I wonder how it's possible to send a virus or anything like it through a messaging service that can only send pure text.

    I don't know how they do it, but there was a big problem on Gaydar a few years ago, where people embedded viruses in their profiles and messages.
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    VinylVicky wrote:
    through a link
    If that's so, it's a matter of not visiting links from a strange person, not being careful to not open their messages.
    RubberSkin wrote:
    I don't know how they do it, but there was a big problem on Gaydar a few years ago, where people embedded viruses in their profiles and messages.
    I don't know how the messaging service works there, but if it uses HTML I can easily see it doing that. You couldn't do that here though.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    One of my friends got caught out with a virus recently, it was a link like

    www.412412domain.com/php?=image919.jpg and they asked if the picture was her. But when she clicked on it, it automatically downloaded and ran a trojan spam virus (well that uses your computer to send the original message).

    I checked the link out and using firefox it still broke through, but my anti-virus stopped it. I posted a thread about it, as you probably wouldn't think twice about clicking on a link with .jpg at the end because you'd assume it was an image.

    I'm happy to say I'm using Opera now, which doesn't automatically download stuff :grump:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If that's so, it's a matter of not visiting links from a strange person, not being careful to not open their messages.

    :yes:
  • JsTJsT Posts: 18,268 Skive's The Limit
    Got a PM off them on one of my 'other' accounts on here.
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