Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 5/10/2011

Question
QUESTION: Dear Carolyn Meinel,

I was on a local newspaper website discussing a political issue
and the posts became heated.
To my surprise I was sent Trojan viruses! I believe that someone from the Legitimate news website illegally tried to ruin my computer.
I have an older computer and the virus protector warned me of
the attack.
I live in California U.S.A is there something I can do about this?
I was wondering if the Federal Trade commission can help me?

         Best Regards, Diane

ANSWER: Usually those sorts of attacks launched by a website against a browser are caused by an automated attack that infects hundreds to thousands of vulnerable websites at a time. Each infected website then attempts to infect the browsers of those who visit them. These attacks are extremely difficult to do, usually requiring the concentrated efforts of a major computer crime organization.

See, for example:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/57000-Web-sites-Compromised-in-Mass-Attack-Sca
http://cyberinsecure.com/network-solutions-customers-websites-compromised-again/

So if that newspaper website did launch an attack on your computer, it is almost certainly because the website was infected by one of those automated crime attacks. Very few people have the ability to launch such an attack, so it is highly unlikely that anyone at the newspaper caused this attack on your computer. You are fortunate that your Internet security software protected you.

What you can do is tell the newspaper about this attack. If your antivirus program keeps a record of attacks, you should provide them with this information so they can more easily determine if their website is infected.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello,
Just a follow up. The attack occurred during a heated exchange and
I cannot blame this news site?
I can't think of anyone else that would have sent me the virus?

But thanks so much! I will check out your links.
Actually my computer is working a tad slower so I don't think my
computer was left unscathed.

         Best Regards, Diane

Answer
You cannot blame the website. The website itself was almost certainly infected by criminals and not by anyone who worked for the website, and it almost certainly was infecting every visitor who had a vulnerable browser. It is highly unlikely that you were singled out.

To avoid getting infected by infected websites, you can use a safer browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera.