Danger, Will Robinson
By: Mr. Wilson on
March 29, 2012
According to Google's "safe browsing" report, the ol' LJS suffers from "38 exploits and 2 trojans":
One possible scenario is that some third-party software they use has been compromised -- an ad delivered from their ad network, perhaps. Lincolnite was actually flagged a few years ago because my web host was hacked via a Wordpress installation on a separate account that shared the same server as me. That was annoying. I can't remember how long it took me to get the warning removed, but I do remember it was longer than I would've liked.
Whatever's going on with JournalStar.com, I recommend you stay away for now unless you know what you're getting into. Your computer probably won't get infected with anything ... but it might. I'll post updates below as I have them.
UPDATE 11:30AM: The alert is gone now.
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I was getting the warning last night but today it has stopped.
Are you still getting the warning message?
Looks like it has gone away for me. I’ll update the post accordingly.
yesterday afternoon I got a strange popup ad that darkened the LJS site and I had to wait 10 seconds for it to go away. This is common on other sites.
I think it might have something to do with the paywall they are going to start doing.
there is an article on LJS addressing the warning.
Their article is wrong. It’s not a “technical issue” with FF or Chrome. Those two browsers merely block access to sites flagged by other sources. The “technical issue” is either (a) innocent content was incorrectly flagged as malware, or (b) journalstar.com actually served up malware, either directly or via a third-party service.
It’s awfully dishonest of the LJS to suggest that the problem is something as simple as a browser incompatibility. They should be encouraging their site visitors—especially those who use crusty old versions of Internet Explorer—to run malware scans right now.
I consider any column or article by Don Walton to be Malware.
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