[SOLVED] Suddenly, _lots_ of infection warnings

[jrethorst]

I have OS 10.6.8 on a 2009 iMac, running Avast antivirus version 12.9 (latest that will run on 10.6, apparently). All good until a few weeks ago, when Avast started posting warnings about malware infections from all kinds of websites, postings that could not be accurate. A full system scan reported all clear. Anyone else seeing all these alleged web infections?

Thanks,
John R.

[ondrej.kolacek]

Hello,

when do the web infections occur? Is it when you start a browser or when you type url of the web page? I know that browsers love to load irrelevant webpages in these cases; assuming you have once browsed to these. Of course that assumes that the pages are indeed infected.

I need at least some of the urls that are detected as infected for our virus lab guys to verify whether something happened with the old vps.

Kind regards,
Ondrej Kolacek

[jrethorst]

The infection warnings post when I type the address and press return, that is, when the site loads.

It's exceedingly curious that I'm getting much less today than when I posted this (or at any time in the past few weeks), but a couple of sites causing warnings today are:

hxtps://www.thenation.com/
hxtps://www.thisclassicalguitar.com/

Thank you,
John

[jrethorst]

This site just posted about six warnings:

hxtp://classicalguitarforum.com/

Thank you,
John

[DavidR]

Please break links to suspect sites so they aren't active to avoid accidental exposure.

e.g.
thenation.com/
thisclassicalguitar.com/

[jrethorst]

Okay.

Two more today (again, this is much less than there has been):

hxtps://cdn.nybooks.com
hxtps://front.moveon.org

John R.

[DavidR]

Once again, please break links to suspect sites to avoid accidental exposure.

Not only that this could lead to promotion of those sites gained from being listed in this forum, or is that your intention.

[jrethorst]

> Not only that this could lead to promotion of those sites gained from being listed in this forum, or is that your intention.

No, it's not. I was asked to post sites where this happens.

John R.

[DavidR]

The example that I gave i Reply #4 (and here), that is still showing/reporting the site location but those aren't clickable (from this forum), e.g. active.

cdn.nybooks.com
front.moveon.org

[David1929]

Hi,

we can't really make out what the problem is. The URLs all seem to be harmless enough.

It would probably help if you could send us screenshots of the Avast detections when they occur.

D.

[jrethorst]

Two screen shots attached.

Thank you,
John

[jrethorst]

Screen shot from one more site:

[Vladimirz]

Hi, please check update and try if problem persists. And also send us screenshot of  "About Avast" dialog from main menu due to version of AVST and virus database. Thanks.

[jrethorst]

The program has updated its virus definitions automatically every day. I don't see another command to update. Screenshot of About box attached.

[darmaggi]

Hi,
For what it's worth, I'm experiencing the exact same issue, and with exactly the same specifics as posted by: jrethorst.
I'm also on a Macbook, but late 2007, and still running 10.6.8, and my Avast version is 12.9.
This issue started for me a few weeks ago as well.
All of a sudden I started getting loads of what must be false alerts on random, and what must be safe websites, many that I've visited before, and the site types run the gamut, even including government websites.
I can't think of anything that I might have changed on my end that would cause the problem.
It seems the age of my computer and the age of my OS are certainly causing more problems than ever as they age out and are no longer supported or sent security updates.
This problem also ends up effecting my search engines since I can't update them any more because of the age of my OS.
I don't know why, but it seems as though Avast is acting sort of like an ad-blocker, or at least the infection alerts in some sense may be triggered by something as "benign" as an ad, no matter how intrusive and annoying they personally may be.
It's really a nuisance having to have to click on all these false alerts on so many websites to remove them, although I haven't disabled Avast yet as I assume/hope it is still working properly to detect any actual infections, malware, etc..