Is This Site Safe Now?

[netibiza]

After yesterday's debacle, with red warnings everywhere, I got straight in today, so I am assuming that this site is safe again? Am I correct, don't want to begger up my new computer!!

[anneasquith]

im in a similar position neti, and await any replies,

[AlwaysConfused]

I steered clear yesterday, seems to be fine today. But I will perform a full Norton system scan on the computer in a bit just to make sure

[pastafreak]

Me too. I had had had no problems until late yesterday,so I just stayed away.

[tonyav]

Have you noticed that there are no advert's ?.

[DTCwordfan]

Probably nothing, AC - I did a full Bullguard scan and nothing

[netibiza]

Yes it is nice with no adverts, but in all reality, no ads no AB!

[pusskin]

Thank god it seems to be back to normal now.
Wouldnt turn AB on all night, due to that horrible warning coming up.
It half scared me to death thinking that its the end of AB x

[paddywak]

I think we were all in the same boat, did a full scan and got straight in this morning.

[pusskin]

I've no idea how to do full scans and correct these troubles, so i hope it doesnt happen again.

[magsmay]

I find it very disconcerting that no one from AB Admin has posted any information about the problem - a few lines from the Ed would have set a lot of peoples minds at rest -its not on really ;-(

[factor-fiction]

At least Ed's team has removed the ads. Hopefully they won't reinstate the ads until each has been fully tested.
I eventually ignored the warnings last night and entered the site, but then my PC crashed so I decided I'd keep away until it was sorted

[boxtops]

Mine's fine today, having suffered as much as everyone else on Friday and Saturday. I have no ads either - I hadn't noticed until it was mentioned above.

[AB Editor]

It's safe.

[factor-fiction]

I know the site needs the ads to survive, Ed but it has been nice without them. In particular it's much better without the big ad next to the Best Answer area as it means I can now see whether answers have already been given to a question without having to tab down to check.

[B00]

hang on, you mean Ibiza remained unrepresented whilst it's Editor ran for the hills?

Shocking!

[tonyav]

Have found out which ad or ad's were causing the problem Ed ?.

[Ellipsis]

> I can now see whether answers have already been given to a question without having to tab down to check.

Hi factor. The first sentence of the "Best Answer" area is "Nobody has yet answered this question" when no answers have been given ...

[jake-the-peg]

What happens is this:

Whenever any complex piece of software like a browser is written there will be errors in the way it treats data.

In the case of a browser like Internet explorer or Firefox it means that if you're clever enough you can construct a web page that crashes the browser. If you're really clever you can then use this error (vulnerability) to insert some malicious code (exploit)

These errors may not be directly the browser - they could be programs like flash or Adobe reader that the browser uses to display content.

If you can get this into something like an advert that is posted to lots of different websites you can infect a really large number of machines.

Despite the obvious advice of having AV software up to date there are 2 other things you can do to help protect yourself against such attacks

1/ Make sure your browser is up to date with the latest fixes from the writers - as soon as such vulnerabilities are found they are usually fixed but you have to have updates switched on (this is normally the default) and accept any requests to update.

2/ Less well known - don't browse from an account that has administrator privilleges. If you've only one account it's probably got full privelleges over the full machine.

If a malicious program crashes your browser it then inherits full rights - it owns your computer!

Here's a site describing how to create a new user

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5261/beginner-geek-add-a-new-user-account-in-windows-7/

[AB Editor]

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/AB-Editors-Blog/Question1219880.html

[factor-fiction]

Thanks ellipsis. I wonder if that has changed recently because I remember it used to say " no best answer has been selected... " even if it hadn't been answered. Still, I think it's better if you can actually see when you read a question whether any answers are there without having to read which 'best answer' message is there