Further information: my.yahoo.com incident
Yesterday I noted that there were reports of computers being infected when users visited their customized my.yahoo.com page.
Early reports indicate that the problem *MAY* have been caused by content from techbargains.com. techbargains.com released a statement on their web site that says:
"This morning and yesterday, we had some technical issues due to an external attack on the site. We tracked down the root cause and have taken strong actions to prevent this from occurring again. We may need to take some further steps in next few days that could bring down the site for temporary periods and we appreciate your patience during that time.
Unfortunately, users that visited the site before we could take it down may have seen a warning message from their virus software. To be safe, you may want to try the following free virus checkers to ensure your computer is clean.
Free Online Virus Scanners: Trend Micro, BitDefender, Kaspersky, or McAfee
If you prefer a Free Downloadable Software Version: AVG Free Edition
We appreciate your continued support and once this is behind us, you can be assured we will rededicate our efforts to finding you the best deals possible."
Cite: http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/130446
My suspicions are NOT definitive proof of a connection, but I do note that a correspondent using the pseudonym japsican00 reports that:
"I started having the same problem at around the same time. I found that an RSS feed, that I had setup on my Yahoo home page, may have been causing the problem (i.e., techbargains.com).
when I tried to go to the site directly, I found:
Techbargains.com is undergoing maintenance right now.
Come back soon!
I deleted the RSS feed from my Yahoo home page, the problem went away (no more links to plgou.com) and no more McAfee warnings of trojans.
I am thinking that maybe the site got hacked, and they are trying to fix it. This was one of my favorite feeds, hope they fix it."
Cite: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20914555-
If your computer was infected during this incident, then unfortunately I must say that I am not confident that the free online virus scanners recommended by techbargains.com will properly clean your system.
There are specialized cleaners freely available to deal with infections such as that being spread via the my.yahoo.com/techbargains.com incident, and these specialized tools invariably do a better job than the more generalized antivirus products on the market, but I still strongly recommend that you seek assistance and guidance from services such as Aumha, Castlecops, bleepingcomputer or your *specialist* support forum of choice. Do NOT try to clean your computer by yourself unless you are experienced in dealing with such infections.
Note: some techbargain.com content is offline at my.yahoo.com
