Java pop-up?

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King Neptune

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While going through AW this morning I have had a window popup saying that need to update Java, and shortly thereafter the AV reports that it has removed the thing.

Now it appears that the virus is not downloading. If you killed it, Great!
 

Wilde_at_heart

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I had a perfectly legitimate Java update only a few days ago. Maybe double-check in your virus software where it originated from? If it's Oracle, then it's legit... It's always important to have the most updated versions of such things.

ETA: And maybe go to the Oracle website where you can double-check to see if you have the most recent version. A new release came out the past week or so.
 
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alleycat

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King, I'd suggest logging off the Internet and running a scan using whatever security software you're using.

A note for everyone else: Don't panic, folks. There is very little chance that this has anything to do with the AW website hosting a virus.
 
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Williebee

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Without getting into the technical and the back end doings of the site, that description would make it NOT a bug on the site. Much more likely a miscommunication between java and that computer's anti-virus. (Depending on whether it was a legitimate java update or not.)

Other possibility is a "drive by" -- a bit of malicious code that dropped in from an ad or infected page that was browsed some time in the past. They get written with a time delayed trigger. The site you are on when it triggers usually has nothing to do with where the machine picked it up.

It's not a comment on the users' browsing habits, either. These days server farms exist to feed ads to pages all over the internet. If the server host, the ad creator and the site and site host aren't diligent, an infected ad can slip in from one of those third party servers.

Just in case that is the situation, safe practice would be to delete the history and temp files of the computers' browsers and restart the computer. When it boots up, run both anti-virus and malware scans.
 

AW Admin

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While going through AW this morning I have had a window popup saying that need to update Java, and shortly thereafter the AV reports that it has removed the thing.

Now it appears that the virus is not downloading. If you killed it, Great!

1. It's not on Absolute Write.

2. It's not a virus, it's malware of the variety known as adware. It installs a cookie and runs a countdown before displaying its fake update or ad popup. This is why you see them most in the first 14 days of a month. You may have had it in your cache for weeks or days.

3. It's in your browser cache. It's an injection attack that takes advantage of the iframe ads on Absolute Write to "inject" the malware.

4. Empty your browser cache, delete your cookies and history. Completely quit the browser. Run scans. Consider downloading and also checking with Adaware and Malwarebytes; don't install them, just scan with them.
 
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