Viruses From Porn Sites?

By DirtyLarry
in Smart Home, Network & Security

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Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

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  • Veteran
Posted

Okay, I ask this as I truly do not know. For starters, I have always done all of my devious internet excursions using a Macintosh. :laugh: But not kidding, that is the truth.

So a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, was having all sorts of issues with his fairly new install of Windows 8 this past weekend.

After running a Virus Scan, which he has a full working copy of ESET Nod32, turns out 3 things were detected, they were eventually removed, and for now, all seems normal. I was unable to see what was detected and removed, he told me about this all after the fact. So not even sure what was found. But he was having some weird issues for sure.

So what can he do to prevent anything like this happening in the future? Can one even really get viruses from visiting adult related sites? Or is that a myth within itself? I am pretty sure it is not, but I honestly do not know, so trying to help my friend avoid any such issues in the future.

So are there any specific apps he can use? Any specific settings to enable in Firefox (that is his browser of choice).

Any help is truly appreciated.

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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

Posted
  • MVC
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Uninstall Java (or don't install it if you don't already have it

Make sure (if you have them) you have the latest versions of Adobe Reader, Flash, Java (if you have it install). I would grab patchmypc and run it on that machine and see what out of date 3rd party software it finds. it updates all of them with 1 click.

Make sure you have all your windows updates

Run Firefox with adblock, flashblock. You can use noscript but it's sorta a pain in the ass.

I also recommend running standboxie. It won't prevent you from getting "infected" but if you do it should just infect the samebox. So to remove the virus infection, you just terminate all sandboxed processes and clear the sandbox.

Moral of the story, make sure you don't have java and keep your system up to date.

  • goretsky and Matthew S.
  • Like 2
Grand Master

LUTZIFER

Posted
Posted

Getting viruses from porn sites is a myth. If anything, it'd be a virus site disguised as one, but very unlikely.

I've been going to porn sites non stop for close to 20 years now and I've never gotten a virus from one.

Out of all the years running computers, I've gotten 2 viruses which I've had no problem manually removing them myself in no time at all.

  • goretsky and +Warwagon
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Veteran

D!ABOL!C

Posted
Posted

I use the browser plugin Web of Trust on all my browsers and recommend it for others. It functions similar to the one McAfee as well as Symantec I believe. They are good at notifying you if a page you visit is malicious or potentially malicious.

  • Mando, Luc2k and goretsky
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Grand Master

Lingwo

Posted
Posted

It is probably some harmless Javascript or a dodgy ad (which can happen on any site) of some sort that the scanners thinks is a virus but really all it probably does is redirect or try and do something with your browser. It is kind of difficult to get a virus from a website, unless you use an outdated browser or allow it to download some file to your computer and run it.

Next time have a look at where the "virus" was. It will probably be in his internet cache folder.

To stop these kind of errors. With firefox use Adblock and noscript. If your friend doesn't use Firefox, get the equivalent for whichever browser they use.

Grand Master

Glassed Silver

Posted
Posted

I use the browser plugin Web of Trust on all my browsers and recommend it for others. It functions similar to the one McAfee as well as Symantec I believe. They are good at notifying you if a page you visit is malicious or potentially malicious.

WoT is way overrated.

It's got a ton of false alarms and porn sites are often market as malicious or potentially malicious.

You'll end up training yourself to not listen to it too much and only apply your own common sense usually.

The malicious site warning feature as found in most modern browsers seems a better fit as it warns less and you take the warnings more seriously.

Glassed Silver:mac

  • Guth and garwin
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Luc2k

Posted
Posted

WoT is way overrated.

It's got a ton of false alarms and porn sites are often market as malicious or potentially malicious.

You'll end up training yourself to not listen to it too much and only apply your own common sense usually.

The malicious site warning feature as found in most modern browsers seems a better fit as it warns less and you take the warnings more seriously.

Glassed Silver:mac

Guess it depends on what you use. I've only seen bad warnings on a few image dump sites.

Grand Master

Rippleman

Posted
Posted

actual real porn sites do not have viruses, they make more money from repeat subscriptions of $30+ a month. But porn warez/torrent/tube sites sites can easily have them. If they do not actually put the malware on their site, the advertising services they use can occasionally get injected with them. The only way to 100% always be safe is surf porn from a sand boxed environment, or a virtual machine. Its not unnecessary and overkill but if you want 100% safe its what you have to do.

  • pickytech and goretsky
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Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

^This

Also....Friend....sure... :shifty:

It honestly is. As I said, I do all of my browsing, and always have, and a Mac based computer. Typing this from a Macbook Pro. I would 1) totally admit if it was me 2) would never be in such a situation to begin with.

for firefox the two biggies would be Adblock Plus and NoScript

nice, I will suggest this first as it sounds like the simplest approach.

Couldn't he use Metro IE to view pron instead?

Would this help? If so I am sure he would use it upon my suggestion.

Thanks in advanced to everyone else. As I said, I was also not sure if it was all just a myth, and others have pointed out this is indeed a good possibility. It could be he did not get this from visiting porn related sites, but it is the only real "strange" thing he does on the computer.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped out so far.

Community Regular

roguekiller23231

Posted
Posted

best thing to do is have an up to date virus scanner and do a malware scan once in a while. every site can get infected from time to time, it would also depend on if you are using one or particular sites all the time, or using google to search around for what you wanted, using many sites would be more likely that you come across one that is going to infect your machine.

if you dont have a malware/spyware scanner

Malwarebytes

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Experienced

pickytech

Posted
Posted

Okay, I ask this as I truly do not know. For starters, I have always done all of my devious internet excursions using a Macintosh. :laugh: But not kidding, that is the truth.

So a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, was having all sorts of issues with his fairly new install of Windows 8 this past weekend.

After running a Virus Scan, which he has a full working copy of ESET Nod32, turns out 3 things were detected, they were eventually removed, and for now, all seems normal. I was unable to see what was detected and removed, he told me about this all after the fact. So not even sure what was found. But he was having some weird issues for sure.

So what can he do to prevent anything like this happening in the future? Can one even really get viruses from visiting adult related sites? Or is that a myth within itself? I am pretty sure it is not, but I honestly do not know, so trying to help my friend avoid any such issues in the future.

So are there any specific apps he can use? Any specific settings to enable in Firefox (that is his browser of choice).

Any help is truly appreciated.

He should probably start using Chrome over Firefox for at least his porn surfing, because it has a sandbox, and have AdBlock installed as well as FlashControl (blocks all Flash content, and it allows in-page enabling, as well as whitelisting for trusted sites, like YouTube). Also, as others have mentioned, uninstall Java, or at least disable it.

The largest source of drive-by viruses are through hacked, low-end ad servers (ads may start from a tier one provider, but they may have nothing to "serve" the visitor, so they will pass the request to a third party, which may have been hacked) that end up getting used for low end ads, and most of these come from Flash. By blocking Flash content, excepting perhaps the *ah-hem* videos, then he will avoid the vast majority of those types of viruses. If he's downloading and running stuff, then there is nothing that can save him; he will get viruses.

Having FlashControl alone will also lead to improved battery life on laptops from the stupid Flash-based ads that just love to suck up CPU and even the GPU in some cases.

Mentor

Xoligy

Posted
Posted

I admit i check out the sites now and again for a free viewing and its hard to tell if its the site your on, some dodgy add that pops up or as mentioned before some image that has some bad code hidden in it (ive had warnings saying such and such an image is dangerous but i believe its the site address being flagged).

Anyway here is what i use and dont seem to have any issues:

Chrome

Kaspersky

Adblock Plus

AdMuncher (Premium adblocker)

I do "sometimes" scan for malware and what not using malwarebytes and i probably do that more than a virus scan lol (maybe once every 2-3months sometimes longer)

Things ive tried:

Flash Block - Found annoying

Noscript - Sounds good and can do a good job but can be annoying to set up and configure so it works correctly with sites i normally ended up just disabling it

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