Photo-Sig.com hits new low

[davidfig]

Well if you spend anytime on photosig. You may well have noticed the increased advertisement.

I for one certainly understand the need to pay for the site. But recently photo-sig has begun using the page jump method of advertising. This is were you click on a picture to see a larger version and after about 10 seconds on that page it jumps to the advertiser's page. This is quite annoying.

Two days ago I went to photo-sig and on clicking a picture, I was rewarded with an installed version of "spyware guard 2008" which is a program that masquerades as a microsoft dialog warning that you are not protected from virus attach. But you can go to the web page (netherlands I think) and purchase the software.

I lost two days of time to this thing and I'm burning mad. So let this be a warning. My photo-sig days are short, as I will only go there to complain.

Why am I warning you. Because the program was able to install even though I have FireFox 3.0.5 and installing requires I accept it. I never got the chance. So they have gotten around the latest FireFox. No, I don't know about other browsers. Maybe others can contribute.

I will add pictures when my drive is fully recovered.

[TheHoff]

???

http://photo-sig.com/

Doesn't seem like you'd want to spend much time there anyway...

[buddy4344]

David,

I post on PhotoSIG also and I have also been fighting this 'spyware guard' infection. I actually didn't remember where I first saw the annoying pop-up, so I didn't correlate the two.
This thing is driving me crazy. I spent 4 hours yesterday trying to get rid of the problem. I also run Mozilla. I even deleted Mozilla and reloaded. Interesting, the incessant pop-ups are Explorer based. I think this infection also has messed up one file on my McAfee as a scan says one file is missing.

If anyone solves this let me know.

EDIT: Hoff, it is not http://photo-sig.com that is the site. It is www.photoSIG.com

[tdodd]

Two days ago I went to photo-sig and on clicking a picture, I was rewarded with an installed version of "spyware guard 2008" which is a program that masquerades as a microsoft dialog warning that you are not protected from virus attach. But you can go to the web page (netherlands I think) and purchase the software.

I lost two days of time to this thing and I'm burning mad. So let this be a warning. My photo-sig days are short, as I will only go there to complain.

Why am I warning you. Because the program was able to install even though I have FireFox 3.0.5 and installing requires I accept it. I never got the chance. So they have gotten around the latest FireFox. No, I don't know about other browsers. Maybe others can contribute.

I will add pictures when my drive is fully recovered.
Your problem sounds much like the same one covered in this article....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/anatomy_of_a_hack/

Friends of mine got hit with this one, or something very like it, and it took me many many hours to hack past it and get them up and running again. I can't remember what I had to do as it was a few months back. I did later find reference to some software to cure it quite easily but that was too late for me. Try Googling for help....

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_en___GB302&q=xp+antivirus+2008

[davidfig]

David,

I post on PhotoSIG also and I have also been fighting this 'spyware guard' infection. I actually didn't remember where I first saw the annoying pop-up, so I didn't correlate the two.
This thing is driving me crazy. I spent 4 hours yesterday trying to get rid of the problem. I also run Mozilla. I even deleted Mozilla and reloaded. Interesting, the incessant pop-ups are Explorer based. I think this infection also has messed up one file on my McAfee as a scan says one file is missing.

If anyone solves this let me know.

EDIT: Hoff, it is not http://photo-sig.com that is the site. It is www.photoSIG.com (http://www.photoSIG.com)


Yes McAfee Enterprise does not see it. But these guys change fast. There is a free program called MalwareBytes Malware removal that can find this and remove it. I have another computer at work removing it. This think is nasty since it has numerous re-attachment methods.

[davidfig]

There is a free program called MalwareBytes Malware removal that can find this and remove it. I have another computer at work removing it. This think is nasty since it has numerous re-attachment methods.

Back on line, takes time to check 260mb of drive I guess. Installed my old drive back into this laptop and every thing is fine.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

The Malware remover found all the executables, cookies, etc and removed it. Now time to complain at photosig.com

[buddy4344]

Yes, I think we found the same solution. I found this link on cnet that helped:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6132_102-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=311499&messageID=2876938&tag=forums06;search-results#2876938

Hopefully, my current scan will come up clean.

BTW, during the effort, I downloaded a free scanner "Spyware Doctor". This did detect all of the trojans, but to clean with the tool, youhave to pay $30. I did and .... it didn't solve the problem. The freeware noted at the CNet site seems to actually have helped.

[Jon Foster]

I haven't been there in a while. I guess I won't be going back now...

Jon.

[davidfig]

Sent a message to photosig three days ago. No response yet.

[b8264d]

Wow! Guess I won't be going back there either.

[freebird]

I wont be going back anymore either. I used to really enjoy the site.

[tedBalog]

Use Malwarebyte, it removes just about everything!

[rcfury]

Way before POTN my father got me into photo-sig. When they first started out it was pretty much the best website out there to get critiques on photos. When it started getting popular they had lots of troubles with speed and bandwith. So in order to keep up with the demand they were forced to get bigger and better servers. That of course comes with a cost. Then they offered the subscription fee to cut all the adds to die hard users while, leaving the leachers all the adds and bloat.

It was a great site to learn from but, now there is lot better..

[FlyingPhotog]

I tried them for about a year but finally decided I didn't like the competitive nature of theirs.

"Earning" credits to be able to post more struck me as too Pavlovian.

[pendulum15]

Uhh, I don't see any ads or anything....

[buddy4344]

adds seem to occur on just certain photos, based on audience rating.

[ron chappel]

I gave up on photosig for other reasons but this kind of thing will keep me away forever!

I'm still appalled when i think of the kind of images that disgusted me so much that i left (no i don't mean the soft porn,that wasn't too bad,lol :))

[buddy4344]

Not sure how to contact a moderator, but I clicked on link by canvanmvt and my antispyware claimed it activated a trojan! beware!

[René Damkot]

Not sure how to contact a moderator, but I clicked on link by canvanmvt and my antispyware claimed it activated a trojan! beware!

Use the "report" button. http://photography-on-the.net/forum/images/buttons/report.gif

Spam has been dealt with ;)

[jessicainvt]

I had the same problem on another site.
It installed "spyware guard 2008", even though I have Firefox, add blockers, etc.
I spent hours trying to uninstall and delete it, but it kept reinstalling itself.
The only program that would remove it for me was Super AntiSpyware.
I believe the program is free or there is a free trial version.

[ae86trueno]

I never been to that site before but normally for me I love Firefox + noscript addon. So far it help me alot on protecting me from all those malicious when I visit any site for first time. What I mean by first, when I visit any site that I never been or unsure then it will not run any script at all until I decide to allow it temporary or always allow it.

[davidfig]

still no response from photosig. Guess they don't care. That's ok, I have one vote and it was to remove myself from the site.