Did I just click a virus/malware link from an old thread?

So I was in this old thread and I clicked a link (www starshatter.com) in this post.

It took me to a page that asked me something about privacy and wanted me to click. It looked sketchy, so I just closed the window, but then I started seeing cmd prompts pop up and I just thought, “aw poop.” I restarted and I’m scanning.

Meanwhile, I looked in the Chrome history and there is this:

Private nojoy apps .com looks pretty suspicious, but when I google it, I get results that also look somewhat sketchy. I could just be getting paranoid.

What do you guys think?

Hmm. I’m not sure about the command prompts you mentioned as I can’t confirm them, but the private.njoyapps.com subdomain is definately the ultimate redirect destination, for that link. That alone will, I think, trigger any good security add-on/extension (and did trigger mine, appropriately). The so-called (sorry) “command prompts” you mentioned were probably sketchy modal windows that weren’t successfully blocked.

FWIW, when milo signed the post with the hyperlink in 2003, starshatter.com was his site, and legit, but the domain expired some time ago. A cursory search indicates the redirected destination is almost certainly up to no good. I’d scan like a mofo, myself.

I wonder if it’s feasible to delete the hyperlinks from milo’s old posts? Looks like he included his hyperlink pretty consistently.

A job for @stusser or @telefrog here to clean that up

Aw, poop. I’m running Win10, but none of the built in security stuff jumped up or blocked it. Yeah, I didn’t get a good look at whatever window popped up, but it looked bad. I’m doing a full scan now. Maybe I’ll get something else installed to scan for me.

Thanks for the post barstein! Wish me luck

Scanning like a mofo, aye, sir!

And install Ublock Origin! Firefox, Chrome.

Thanks for the heads up!

Thank you sir! Added to Chrome.

Aisle three, clean up. :)

No, thank you!

My advice is back up your documents, pictures, and what have you and wipe your system and re-install the OS.

Seems like overkill Scott.

Won’t work, viruses can infect the firmware of the hard drive, even the freaking VIDEO card.

Not if you suddenly have a hidden keylogger on your system. :( But yeah, it might be.

Here I am on my PC and it’s still freaking scanning all my files…

What does Ublock do? I added it to Chrome, and it looks like it’s scanning every page I visit, but I’m not really sure how to interact with it. Is this something to prevent future attacks or does it help to find an infection, after the fact? If it’s a post infection thing, how do you make it do the work?

It’s an adblocker, which also blocks all kinda of malicious stuff.

It basically automatically blocks ads and the crap that comes with them unless you whitelist a site, which you do by clicking on the extension icon, then on the power button, and refreshing.

It blocks ads as well as any scripts that try and run. It’s pretty amazing.

Oh, cool. I had a different ad blocker, but it might not be up to the task. I actually have both of them running, but now I think I will just give ublock a try on its own, since it comes recommended.