3rd virus attack at Photo Bucket - BEWARE!

[yount]

just got attacked on photobucket my virus prog picked it up

 

[the dude abides]

That's why I don't use Photobucket, too many ads. I use Shutterfly.

 

[moltenone]

you could try preclick for your photos.



Mark

 

[richoso1]

I've suspended my use of photonucket and I'll use some other image host.

 

[rdknb]

Makes note not to go to photobucket for a bit. I need to look at that shutterfly one. Thanks on the virus heads up

 

[old poi dog]

Hi Dude,

Thanks for the heads up on this one. I've been following this thread for the past 2 days. I'll check out Shutterfly as well. I hope they have clear posting instructions..

 

[jon foster]

Man, the punch card days... Not to sound mean or anything, but we would pull a punch card out of the center of a stack and slide it back into the stack several cards later... The victims never learned either...

Jon.

 

[alx]

Man that is cruel....

 

[forluvofsmoke]

i was uploading on pb last weekend when a Flashplayer popup nabbed my ie browser. Quite the ordeal. I don't trust ms now. Using firefox n avg now. Eric

 

[flash]

What ads on Photobucket???

 

[alx]

Eric,that is the exact thing that happened to me...

 

[alx]

I get these annoying pop-ups that i think when i closed it the virus was loaded.....not sure,but the problem i had came thru as a unauthorized adobe flash update...I nailed it with spy-bot,but recently upgraded my security....

 

[rivet]

Great security stuff there Gary, use it all the time. Thanks for posting it.

 

[deltadude]

ALX, when you get those popups, DO NOT, close them with either the "close" or the exit X in upper left. Open Task Manager and close your browser, which will close the popup. This is very annoying, but if the popup is malicious and you click anything in that popup you are triggering whatever it wants you to do. If you are still getting the popups after you have left the site where you think they originated you have picked up a virus/trojan/ something malicious. Close everything down and run you spy & anti virus stuff.

In my initial post I cover what I use for AV, and general Malware. Please note the first two times I was hit while on Photobucket, my AV setup did what anyone would want, first try all 3 "Avast, Superantispyware, and Winpatrol" all notified me of a problem and I did a quick google on the listed virus, then rebooted to "safe mode" ran Superantispyware, and all the problems appeared solved. 2nd attack while on Photobucket, Avast didn't warn me, Superantispyware and Winpatrol, notified me of the attack. I again rebooted to Safe Mode ran Superantispyware, and while it appeared that the problem was solved, it wasn't. This time only 2 of the 4 virus files were deleted and 2 still remained. I still had problems. This was frustrating because I paid for Superantispyware and it wasn't doing the job. So I downloaded Malwarebytes installed and ran it. 7 viruses were identified, and deleted, my system was mostly clean, all remaining issues appear solved.

In the article I link above, today viruses can block your AV apps, making it impossible to clean out the malicious files. I think this is what happened with Superantispyware, it was blocked from deleting the other files. Since Malwarebytes wasn't on my system when the Virus attack occurred thus Malwarebytes wasn't blocked. So after Malwarebytes successful cleaning, I then deleted Malwarebytes completely off my C: Drive but have a copy of the Malwarebytes setup file on another drive ready for install if I am attacked again.

BTW, there are viruses out there that won't even let you run any AV and can detect if you try to install an new AV then block that AV. After 20 years of playing with PCs I have only once had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall windows to overcome a serious attack. You should know there are situations where reformat and reinstall windows is unavoidable.

 

[pepeskitty]

Like mentioned before here AVG has a free program that will catch most things out there. You might want to download it and it will certainly help with what you are running now.

 

[deltadude]

List of potential alternative Image Hosting sites, instead of using Photobucket.

Imageshack from what I can find is Photobucket's main competition...

• Bayimg
  - Offers free, uncensored image hosting with an emphasis on free speech. As long as stored images are legal under Swedish law, they won't be removed.
• BiggerBids
  - Offers unlimited image hosting designed for online auction sellers. Includes advanced features including bulk upload, watermarking and auction layout integration.
• EzPixs
  - Provides internet users with a free and simple way to upload pictures that can be shared on popular sites.
• Firesnaps
  - Online digital photo management, image hosting and photo printing service.
• Hellameke
  - Image hosting service targeted at New Zealand users.
• Host My Pic Online
  - Very simple-to-use site for people to upload their images quickly.
• Hostwave
  - Image hosting for your online auctions and personal images.
• Image Uploads
  - Free image hosting for auctions, personal or business use. Premium hosting also available.
• Image Viper
  - Free image, picture and photo hosting. Host images and photos are free. Premium hosting packages are available for users who need extra features or more hosting space.
• ImageCabin
  - Image and video host with optional user registration for file management and personal albums. Registered users also get more space.
• ImageFly
  - Free image hosting service which proposes to pay image uploaders for each view of their images. Bonuses for referring other contributors are offered as well. No file size or transfer limits are specified.
• ImageHosting.com
  - Free image hosting for online photo gallery creation and photo sharing.
• ImagesFly.com
  - Free image hosting service by ImagesFly.com, also includes a watermarking tool to protect copyright of your images.No registration required.
• ImageShack
  - Free image upload hosting solution.
• ImageVenue hosting
  - Free image hosting for your pictures
• Large Image Host
  - Easy free image host for uploading images files without registration. Features include 1.5mb file upload limit, automatic thumb and code generation.
• MiamiHost.net
  - Offers free image hosting.
• Munkypix
  - Free image hosting to share your images with your friends / family and the community.
• Negimaki
  - Provides photoblog hosting using Gallery and WordPress.
• Olaolaonline.net
  - Free image hosting service. Registration not required. Upload limit of 1 MB for jpg, gif and png images. Public gallery, comment insertion available. Support forum. English and Italian version.
• Picatom
  - Allows a user to upload and share images. Users do not need to register.
• Pic-Hoster
  - Free image hosting for online auctions, power seller tools, listing management, image hosting, image sharing, photo albums, picture hosting service, photo sharing, and more.
• PicHub
  - Image upload for eBay, EzBoards, Forum boards, and sharing to your friends.
• Picshome
  - Free image hosting with a 2MB file size limit and 1GB transfer limit per file. Offers the ability to watermark uploaded images. Registration is optional.
• PicsHosted
  - Host and share images. Free photo management, archived lists, and album slideshows.
• Pic-Spot.com
  - Image host with no registration, fast upload times and easy linking methods.
• PicTiger
  - Free image and flash hosting with various resizing, cropping, filtering and layout options. 1MB file size limit, no transfer limit specified.
• Picturebay.net
  - Free image hosting for use on most online services. Registration is not required but enables more advanced options and larger file size.
• Pikki
  - Pikki is a free image hosting service that provides a quick and easy way to host image galleries and share pictures with your friends.
• PostImage
  - Free image hosting service for phpBB and vBulletin forum owners. Offers a 'mod' which, once installed, allows users to upload images to the service from the forum posting page. Service can not currently be used directly.
• PushPic
  - Paid logo and product image hosting for merchants who use 3rd party payment processors. Images are served via HTTPS preventing the appearance of mixed security status warnings during the checkout process.
• PutPix
  - Free image, picture and photo hosting.
• Shutterfly
  - Free & unlimited image, picture and photo hosting.
• SigShare.com
  - Provides image hosting for sharing e-signatures, renders and digital art.
• Supload
  - Free image, video and audio hosting with 1600x3200 image dimension limit. Upload images from a computer, mobile phone or a website with a free Firefox extension. Registration is optional and no transfer limit is specified.
• UP2.IT
  - Free journals/weblog and picture hosting including SMS and e-mail submission. Free (with ads) or pay as you go for images.
• Upload and GO!
  - Provides free hosting for images, no registration required and hotlinking is allowed.
• Weblog Images
  - Picture hosting for weblog and journal users.
• WeImage
  - Free image and video hosting / sharing service.
• xs.to
  - Provides free hosting for images. No registration required, hotlinking is allowed. Listing and delete features available.
• YourUpload.com
  - Simple and easy image hosting solution with optional password protection of files.
• Yoxio.com
  - Free galleries available. Users who signup with a premium subscription option can raise limits from 10 MB to 50 MB of disk space.

 

[deltadude]

I just signed up for Imageshack and uploaded then posted some images here at SMF.

Image shack up load is SLOW compared to photobucket.

 

[meat hunter]

Good work there Deltadude. I had no idea there we so many options for this. Does this qualify for "sticky" status? It would be great to have this for our many new members signing up as well as some of the old timers who may not know about other alternatives? Just an idea.

for taking time to round all them up for us.

 

[erain]

i kept on using PB as i have had no probs with it. the viruses are out there and it is the protection you supply your pc with which makes the difference. use trend AV and spysweeper and never had a prob... i have checked out other image sharing sites and of yet not found one that will compete with the bulk uploader on Photobucket. i staying there, if i quit posting well maybe i got a virus, if not dont blame the site, ck protection first. on purpose i stayed logged on to PB as much as possible since i read this thread. absolutly no probs, just great uploading.

 

[rickw]

I can appreciate others having problems with PB but I will admit, I've never had a pop up on that site. I run Avast and ZoneAlarm and can't say I've had a problem.

I just had to fix my sons girlfriends PC due to it being infected so I know it's a total pita.

I hope y'all get things straightened up with out to much hassle.