Network Shield keeps blocking a good website.

[english teacher]

HI,
Thanks for the replies. I had never any intention of turning off the Network Shield.
I have, this morning, received this reply from Nectar about this problem which I've pasted below.
Now I'm going to reply to them saying that also AVG has found viruses in two subdomain pages. I'll keep you posted.
Ah PS I also left a message about this on Facebook Nectar page as well!!! There are people reporting the problem there as well (as already posted in this thread)

Thank you for contacting FreeCause Support. 

Freecause Toolbars are simple plug-ins that provide ready access to the features and functions you use online every day.  They are free of spyware, adware, and malware.

Despite the fact that our software is safe, some security software will flag Freecause software as untrusted software. We were able to identify the problem and our team is contacting Avast.

We suggest adding freecause.com as trusted site for your antivirus software at this time.

We will inform you when the problem is resolved.

Best Regards,
FreeCause Support

[english teacher]

Just a quick update.

Anybody noticed that there are NO "DING DING DING Warning Threat Has Been Detected" ?

I guess somebody must have fixed it. (I just turned on the sound) 

[polonus]

The site has a long ongoing history of launching malware from 2011-11-02 15:09:2 to 012-10-19 21:57:26
unknown_html_RFI_php malware and  unknown_html_google_malware has been present there, longest time of malware activity 510 hours,
latest malware activity episodes 1 to 0.1 hrs. Website must be vulnerable to remote file injection attacks and needs hardening against this.
At the moment I get a Unable to properly scan your site. Site returning error (40x): HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Your configuaration is lax adn there are issues....
Search for STOR, APPEND give in  & ggf. to check on the  IPs 174.37.58.238 174.37.58.237 DNS type A....

polonus

[DavidR]

Just a quick update.

Anybody noticed that there are NO "DING DING DING Warning Threat Has Been Detected" ?

I guess somebody must have fixed it. (I just turned on the sound) 

I'm not getting an alert on the toolbarservice.freecause.com sub-domain and it still redirects to the toolbarservice.freecause.com/2.6/ directory, but I get a blank page and no page source. So perhaps they have taken down this /2.6/ directory data, but avast is no longer alerting on the sub-domain as before.

[rob24]

I have re-enabled the Toolbar on Firefox and Chrome and there is no longer any Malware detection warnings. So not sure what has happened but I'm glad it has!

[mchain]

Hi,

It is apparent that the detection by Avast! was correct.  It provided the protection you needed when you needed it. 

Do not blame Avast! when it is doing its' job.  Be glad it does.  Question now is, if past history is any indication, why have this on your system?

[rob24]

Hmm interestingly, on today's 18:30 hrs Quick Scan, Avast has detected PUP see attached screenshot of file in Chest. In 2+ years of using this toolbar (to collect points towards money off shopping) I've never had problems with it. But then doing the arithmetic, its worth next to nothing! 
Perhaps I ought to submit to Avast anyway.

[DavidR]

Well the point is that it is a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) - See http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci1066761,00.html. Not included in this definition are tools which can be used for good or evil, some have been legitimately installed for a specifically good purpose, but could have been unknowing installed for a malicious purpose.
Not all antivirus programs scan for PUPs and avast has it turned off by default (an exception being the boot-time scan).

So if you get this on a Quick scan you have been tweaking the avast settings without knowing what the impact might be.

[polonus]

Good remark by DavidR, and right he is there!
Beacause tweaking the settings without an informed advice is bad practice.
An av solution is a program with a purpose and all parts of it have their purpose (pup detection, shields, etc. etc.)

polonus

[rob24]

Ah yes I see the association with Spyware in the link you provided DavidR. Interesting.

Yes it does look as if I've been tweaking the scan settings as PUP is ticked. Not that I recall doing it! Do you advocate turning this off back to the default setting? Actually I did a Boot time scan today (which was clear) then re-enabled the toolbar then did the Quick scan as I do every day. Think I might actually give the Toolbar the heave-ho. It earns 100 points per month equivalent to £0.5 in a Supermarket. Drop in the ocean when compared to grocery price rises!

[DavidR]

The main problem with enabling PUPs is you have to have a degree of knowledge of what you have installed on your system, what it does and why it might be considered a PUP to be able  to make any informed decision. I believe that is why PUPs are not enabled in the regular on-demand scans.

- With a resident on-access antivirus like avast, the need for frequent on-demand scans is much depreciated. For the most part the on-demand scan is going to be scanning files that would be otherwise be dormant or inert. If they were active files then the on-access file system shield would be scanning them before being created, modified, opened or executed.

I have avast set to do a scheduled weekly Quick scan, set at a time and day that I know the computer will be on. If for some reason my system wasn't on, no big deal I will catch up on the next scheduled scan.

####
Now if you know why you installed this toolbar and the fact that it will be gathering information that is used for marketing purposes by the vendor. This may also be used to deliver targeted adverts, this is why many toolbars are considered ad/spyware.

[CharleyO]

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The real lose is not the "100 points per month equivalent to £0.5" but the lose of your personal information using such toolbars. It doesn't matter what toolbarservice.freecause.com might tell you. Think about this:
How do you think they know what offers to present to you?


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