Adium Virus?

[eyemacg5]

2 of my contacts randomly came online and sent me a link here.
http://www.free-offers-for-you.com

I was thinking its a virus at this end because 1 uses windows vista and the other uses leopard.

Using Leopard, Latest Adium X on a MBP 2.2ghzSR.


Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

[rogersmj]

No. Almost certainly not.

Did you talk to those friends? Have you confirmed what they were doing/how they were running their chat accounts when those messages were sent? Viruses involving chat networks typically SEND from the infected users, they don't generate messages FOR the infected users. I think your friends need to check their systems.

[eyemacg5]

No, I havent but at the time on they were received I am certain one would not have there computer turned on.

[maxrobertson]

someone probably hacked their password and logged onto their account.

[VoidBoi]

Someone I know sent me that link too... their account had been compromised.

[wazza180]

I have been getting bombarded by that link from others and other people have been accusing me of sending it out!

Is there a remedy? I used spybot and it didnt make a difference, seems that when I turn MSN on it automatically sends to anyone and visa versa.. I mainly get it when someone is offline (as if someone goes through their account to send the link)

And this is the link Im getting: http://www.free-offers-for-you.com when I first clicked on it (and my wife on hers) it tookus to a site to show us who had blocked us on MSN.

Microsoft is uncontactable (the weekend) is there any short fix?

[VoidBoi]

I'm assuming that site just harvests usernames and passwords and then uses them to sent out that link.

Just change your MSN password. :)

[mengreco]

i have the same problem.
i changed my password and then i when i try to log in to hotmail sometimes it says that someone has tried too many times to log in so i have to try again later or change pass.
also when i use firefox many times a message appears to accept a certificate or not!
is there a way to stop this crap?
and sometimes firefox is lagging...

macbook pro 15'

[.fred]

Is this a virus? Should i change my password?

[BlakTornado]

It's probably just phishing.

Everytime you click those links, your username and password gets stored. Then a bot logs into your account and sends those messages to other people.

It's happens on everything and isn't just an issue with adium. It could happen on iChat, Skype, AIM, etc.

Is this a virus? Should i change my password?

Not a virus. Change your password and it will stop yourself sending those messages if you've been phished. Just don't click weird links from people (Whether or not you're friends with them or not). Ask them what it is, first. And if they just give automated responses, don't click it.

"Free Offers" is a suspicious one. So is "Is this picture (http://www.example.com) you!?" (One I almost got struck by once... although, that WAS a virus *I was on my old PC* but thankfully I had FireFox, so I could terminate it easily). If you're on a Mac, you won't get viruses so you're safe. If you know the person most definitely wouldn't have their computer on at that time, then it's someone else (or something else) on their account sending you these malicious messages. To be honest, they only take your passwords for the IM service, so I don't see the point in it... but hey, people are b*rds. (I meant birds... ummm)

[.fred]

Ok, didn't click on it,phew. I changed my pass though. I knew i could trust:apple: :p.

Good to hear.

[*old-guy*]

I'm a complete klutz at computers and viruses but I don't see the logic of posting a link to a possible virus. Maybe lots of people opening thisw thread will click on the link to see what it is and OOOOOOOPSIE!!!
Too late.

[rogersmj]

I'm a complete klutz at computers and viruses but I don't see the logic of posting a link to a possible virus. Maybe lots of people opening thisw thread will click on the link to see what it is and OOOOOOOPSIE!!!
Too late.

In general you're correct, that's not really a safe practice...on the other hand, you can't get a virus on a Mac just by visiting a web site. You'd have to actually download and install something to get a virus on a Mac.

[BlakTornado]

In general you're correct, that's not really a safe practice...on the other hand, you can't get a virus on a Mac just by visiting a web site. You'd have to actually download and install something to get a virus on a Mac.

But phishing will work no matter what OS you're on as it's all done through the web browser with PHP and Javascript (I think)

Macs are Virus Proof, but they aren't idiot proof ;)

(Well, not idiots. Just people who don't necessarily think or know about these sorts of things - which you normally wouldn't unless you've encountered it before)

It's just one of those pointless things that happens to piss people off.

[stephenc92]

A lot of my contacts are doing this - it's not Adium or MSN software. It's actually beneath people's accounts. When you visit that website, you give them your username and password which they then use to spam.