#51
Posted: 11/19/2011 7:26:38 AM
QUOTE Originally Posted by
Lou:
I've asked about this and this is what I've been told:
First of all, it's not us. Covers has a hosting company that runs the latest software and virus checks daily.
Think about it. Why would a site ever allow this to happen? It's the worst kind of PR. So we don't let it happen by ensuring we don't have viruses.
Second... it's virtually impossible to catch a virus from a website without specifically downloading a file and executing it. Have any of you been asked to download any files off of Covers lately? No. We don't do that either.
Third, Covers is a site that contains a lot of passwords and has an ecommerce section. This means we can be a target for hackers and scammers. A lot of viruses and scams involve getting usernames and passwords from sites like ours, so that the scammers can hopefully log in and get your personal info.
So if you are getting a lot of virus warnings, it could be:
1) Your AV software is set to a very high setting, which means it's sensing when Covers accesses your cookies to check your login status and giving a false positive. We have to do that, or else you would have to login on every page.
2) You have a virus - that you got somewhere else - and it's noticed that your are on Covers and it's trying to sniff out your username and password, triggering your AV software to alert.
3) You have malware on your system. There are a some anti-spam and anti-spyware programs that are designed to make it look like they are helping you out, when they are actually doing the opposite. So you think you are protected, when these programs are actually sniffing out your passwords. Could be that this is happening and your AV program is noticing it, triggering an alert.
Here's an example:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/Threat/Encyclopedia/Entry.aspx?.
Bottom line: if you have downloaded software from the Internet, you are susceptible to this. Otherwise, we would have transmitted a virus to 2 million people this month, not just the dozen or so people in this thread.
Finally, as mentioned above, this is the kind of garbage that affects companies in a bad way, so we DO take it seriously. I mean, it only makes sense, right? If we didn't, then we are stupid.
So rest assured that there are trouble tickets going on right now at our hosting company trying to figure out if there is anything we can do on our side to help you guys out. But we are certain we do not have any viruses.
That's all I can say right now.
Viruses can hit sites with much more sophisticated AV software than what covers has. Facebook and Twitter just got hit. So to say "it's not us" is ignorant.