Adware on Neowin


Recommended Posts

Heh. Darn those Firefox users! *shake fist*

Hmmm, that's a BC-registered numbered corporation, in the same province where I'm in (where I happen to head up the security/abuse desk of a Tier 1 carrier). I hope those clowns aren't with us. :|

Anyone know the IP address where the first download is coming from? If the ad's still up, maybe I'll fire up a vmware win98 session and see if I can capture it.

It seems to me that neowin or its ads are changing my homepage, cuase after a hour browsing around in other forum (after using ccleaner to clean all the interent stuff on my comp,run adaware and spybot) nothing happen. Until just now when my homepage changed.

Before my homepage change i get this pop-up from object.passthison.com/vu083003/object.cgi?homepage1

ANY help

The same IP address range keeps appearing. I would suggest using your firewall to block 209.50.252.0/24:

Non-authoritative answer:

Name: object.passthison.com

Addresses: 209.50.252.113, 209.50.252.114, 209.50.252.116

%whois -a 209.50.252.113

ServInt Corp. SERVINT-CIDR-1 (NET-209-50-224-0-1)

209.50.224.0 - 209.50.255.255

ServInt Internet Services SERVINT-INTR-2 (NET-209-50-252-0-1)

209.50.252.0 - 209.50.252.255

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2004-03-17 19:15

# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

%whois -a servint-intr-2

OrgName: ServInt Internet Services

OrgID: SIS-31

Address: 6861 Elm St.

City: McLean

StateProv: VA

PostalCode: 22101

Country: US

NetRange: 209.50.252.0 - 209.50.252.255

CIDR: 209.50.252.0/24

NetName: SERVINT-INTR-2

NetHandle: NET-209-50-252-0-1

Parent: NET-209-50-224-0-1

NetType: Reassigned

NameServer: NS.SERVINT.COM

NameServer: NS2.SERVINT.COM

Comment:

RegDate: 1998-06-30

Updated: 2001-05-15

TechHandle: NO178-ARIN

TechName: Network Operations

TechPhone: +1-703-847-1421

TechEmail: [email protected]

I can tell you right now, Neowin does not (nor ever has) support any forms of Spyware/Adware/Malware/Asshatware. The blame for this one lies in one of the Advertising companies that Neowin receives it's banners from, Redmak will resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Thanks again for your concern,

Cara

Global Moderator

All of you Firefox users are blocking our Ads I suppose...great to help out the site's funding.  :rolleyes:

I'm using firefox and i'm not blocking anything related to neowin's ads. :)

So "ALL" is not a good way to say it :/

Weak ass trojan can't even infect with my McAfee disabled lol.

Well the "trojan" is hosted on http://www.achtungachtung.com/0021 (this is where all the parts of the "trojan" are located) but I can't tell you much more because I can't get the whole thing downloaded. I have the part that installs the trojan but not the part it downloads after you're infected.

I'm willing to bet though that this trojan aint a trojan but a crappy spyware program. The infecter part(index[1].html is pretty small but makes several references to LaunchJpu.php which in turn references scriptbody.jsp which then references payloadexe.exe(which I can't seem to get). It also mentions C:/WINDOWS/PCHEALTH/HELPCTR/System/panels/Context.htm and has several paths to notepad coded into it but just what it does I can't say because I can't get payloadexe.exe, and on top of that even if I could I probably wouldn't understand it as easy as I would a script like the other files.

I'm working on this but as I don't get these ads myself it's quite hard to pinpoint its origin.

If any of you get this ad again could you please provide me with:

The link of the banner that is showing at that time (so do a mouseover and read your IE status bar) and if you could even provide me with the source code of the page (the neowin page) so I can check the ad code in there.

I was in this thread

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=149643

And the ad above was

http://oz.valueclick.com/cycle?host=hs0279...script=1;msizes

"Free! Online Diabetes menu planner Click here to use it now"

Hoped i have help, off to scan my comp, how gay :blush:

Oh can someone look in there registry and go to

Hkey_Current_user\software\microsoft\internet Explorer\main

and look for

search bar

search page

And tell me what is the defualt data suppose to be. So i can change mines :)

i found that mines said smartbotpro which i guess is affiliated with the Passthison crap, after doin research on it.

Currently in my registy (pic below)

post-19-1079623857.jpg

Oh can someone look in there registry and go to

Hkey_Current_user\software\microsoft\internet Explorer\main

and look for

search bar

search page

And tell me what is the defualt data suppose to be. So i can change mines :)

i found that mines said smartbotpro which i guess is affiliated with the Passthison crap, after doin research on it.

Currently in my registy (pic below)

Those registry keys are not a default part of Internet Explorer. They are a part of the "adware" you are describing. I would delete them personally.

after some time again researching about passthison, i have learn that this Hijacking occured becuase of some flaw/hole in IE.

Would it be in my best interest to switch to firefox. Will it rid me of my problem.

Other forum also sent me a popup and reset my homepage. i have tried everything to get rid of it, including going to safe mode with CMD and del index.dat/s. I manage to browse around neowin by pressing hte stop button before the ads load.

Firefox - yay or nay?

I was getting the same crap yesterday. I thought it was just me, but looks like others are complaining now as well. I got rid of it by running HiJackThis and removing the entries for it. I didn't even get one of those installer windows, like in some screenshots. I just got a normal popup that opened and was closed instantly by the google toolbar, and then after that popup I had problems.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Hello, It would appear so, according to https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-hide-your-home-on-google-maps-apple-maps-204146687.html. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky      
    • Hello, The Nvidia Founders Edition 3080 video card is approximately six years old, correct? Have you looked into whether replacement fans are available for it? Perhaps replacing those will improve cooling, especially when combined with cleaning the card's heatsink and replacing the thermal interface materials. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky  
    • Hello, While ~104 GB of space may seem generous (at least compared to other e-readers which have 8-32GB), I feel at this price point the device should have a Micro SDXC card slot for expansion, particularly if it allows audio books to be installed and played. I hope to see more reviews of 6" phone-sized e-readers on Neowin in the future. It will be interesting to see how they compare. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky
    • Sandboxie Plus 1.17.8 / Classic 5.72.8 by Razvan Serea Run programs in a sandbox to prevent malware from making permanent changes to your PC. Sandboxie allows you to run your browser, or any other program, so that all changes that result from the usage are kept in a sandbox environment, which can then be deleted later. Sandboxie is a sandbox-based isolation software for 32- and 64-bit Windows NT-based operating systems. It is being developed by David Xanatos since it became open source, before that it was developed by Sophos (which acquired it from Invincea, which acquired it earlier from the original author Ronen Tzur). It creates a sandbox-like isolated operating environment in which applications can be run or installed without permanently modifying the local or mapped drive. An isolated virtual environment allows controlled testing of untrusted programs and web surfing. Sandboxie is available in two flavors Plus and Classic. Both have the same core components, this means they have the same level of security and compatibility. What's different is the user interface the Plus build has a modern Qt based UI which supports all new features that have been added since the project went open source. The Classic build has the old no longer developed MFC based UI, hence it lacks support for modern features, these features can however still be used when manually configured in the Sandboxie.ini. Sandboxie Plus 1.17.8 / Classic 5.72.8 release notes: Added added DisableCustomTitleOpt=[process,][y|n] to allow [#] sandboxie title markers on custom-titlebar windows (Delphi VCL, Qt, Electron) that were previously skipped to prevent DWM repaint CPU loops #5387 Changed updated bundled ImDisk driver to 3.0.2 #5419 Fixed fix Suppress logs for expected non-user SIDs #5422 SbieSvc.exe: SBIE2218/2219 error when run program as administrator #5417 fixed explorer.exe crashes in Application Compartment when Huorong Security is installed #5423 Download: Sandboxie Plus (64-bit) | 23.5 MB (Open Source) Download: Sandboxie Classic (64-bit) | 3.0 MB Links: Sandboxie Website | GitHub | ARM64 | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Hello, Christian Maas' XVI32 is a nice (and very small) hex editor. Speaking of hex editors, many years ago a colleague and I who both worked at Tribal Voice managed to edit a copy of the company's PowWow instant messaging client to make it behave better now that all of its lookup servers and other server-side tech was gone.  The program didn't support NAT (RFC-3022 was introduced in January 2001, the same time Tribal Voice was shuttered), but it still worked okay if you manually set up port-forwarding on your router.  The server at http://powwow.jazy.net/ hosts a copy (usual warnings about downloading and running untrusted code from random internet servers apply). I occasionally use some tools like Funduc Software's Search and Replace and Application Mover when I need to make mass-edits to text-based files or move programs with a hard-coded installation directories, respectively.  When I need to figure out the exact LCD panel inside of a laptop, EnTech Taiwan's Monitor Asset Manager is my go-to tool for that purpose. JD Design's website (now hosted on github.io) has a number of interesting freeware and shareware utilities.  I used to use their TouchPro utility to set the file timestamps on software I was mastering to match its version number (e.g., version 3.00 of a program had all of its files dates set to 3:00AM, and so forth). Karenware has a number of interesting freeware utilities, too. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky  
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Jeroen Wilms earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      rolfus earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Leroy Jethro Gibbs earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Conversation Starter
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Month Later
      AndreaB earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      509
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      198
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      138
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      90
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      82
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!