by Webmaster » Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:29 pm
Having spent most of the morning dealing with this, I thought I should let you all know about it. I'm very grateful that I have the tools on my computer to handle these things, and I would encourage everyone to keep their ant-virus programs up to date at all times.
This morning when I logged into my Yahoo messenger, there was a message waiting for me that appeared to come for a friend. It said, "Hey, I found this photo of you online and thought you should know it about. It's not a good thing to have out there." There was a link to click, the last part of it being a .png file.
Thinking it was coming from a friend, and trusting that friend, I clicked on the link. A page opened up and then my system went crazy. The anti-virus program went in to overdrive, and at least 10 new windows opened up. Having dealt with these kinds of problems before, I simply unplugged my computer from the wall. That's not really a recommended way to shut it down, but it's better than having the whole system crash.
I spent the next 3 hours running scans, cleaning the system, and finding over 2,000 worms and Trojan viruses on my system. When I did this I disconnected my computer from the internet since some of those programs are used to transmit all your personal information to somebody else.
After I was able to get back online safely, I did a search for this kind of thing. I found that this is new and works with any Instant Messenger program. Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Jabber, and more.
Should you get a message like this, or similar to it, don't click on the link. Instead ask the person that sent it to verify that they did actually send it. If not, they you saved yourself a lot of hassle. If they did, then you know it's legit.
God Bless!
I am the webmaster. I maintain the site and take care of upgrades.
If you need to contact me about technical matters please send me email at
webmaster@cnvillage.org