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Medievalist · May 28, 2008, 07:55 PM

I was using StumbleUpon, and came to a site that said I had been hacked by Issam, and started running a string of numbers that looked like root system stuff.

I backed out immediately and closed Safari.

I confess to ignorance. Is it possible to be hacked in such a fashion? And if so, what do I do about it?

Cold Warrior · May 28, 2008, 08:24 PM

You're fine.

Did it ask you to download anything, and did you? Recently run any apps or strange supposed movie codecs to play some porn?

Medievalist · May 28, 2008, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior

You're fine.

Did it ask you to download anything, and did you? Recently run any apps or strange supposed movie codecs to play some porn?

No, I didn't download anything, and never do. And I've heard about the problem with movie codecs--the only stuff I ever download is direct from the various sites--DIVX, etc.

Is there anything I can run to double-check? I can get Norton free through my uni, but I always hated Norton when I was a PC user, and don't think I would feel any differently as a Mac user.

Cold Warrior · May 28, 2008, 08:38 PM

ClamXav 1.1e92 - MacUpdate

ClamXav will scan for you. It's free.

Medievalist · May 28, 2008, 09:08 PM

Cool. Thanks.

I figured it was just some sort of prank, but you never know these days.

I'm scanning now. It's rather slow.

Randman · May 28, 2008, 09:17 PM

If you are hacked, post back. I've been on Macs since 1984 and have never heard of anyone hacked yet.

slpdLoad · May 28, 2008, 10:20 PM

By now, if you get hacked, it's because the "hackers" tricked the user, not the computer. As long as you're not giving your admin password to things when you have no reason why (and this is hardly likely to ever occur on a Mac), you have nothing to worry about. Unix has been around a long time.

Medievalist · May 28, 2008, 11:53 PM

So far, ClamXav hasn't found anything, though it's only allowing me to check one area at a time, and it's awfully slow.

I'll post again when I've scanned everything.

schuey100 · May 29, 2008, 08:01 AM

What on earth would ClamXav find? I mean, it sounds like the most ridiculous application ever. Personally I'd stop running it, waste of time.

You went to a site that said you had been hacked. First, it's unlikely that a site will tell you, it sounds like one of those scare sites that pop up. Second, you were on it with Safari, no hacker in their right mind is going to spend time writing up a trojan for OSC so they might get one in every 10m users that visit the site.

So my advice, don't worry about it unless you think your machine is playing up.

Randman · May 29, 2008, 02:11 PM

ClamXav is a decent mod to run if you do any cross-platform work, or send anything to people using Windows as a virus may not infect a Mac but it can be a carrier and be sent to your PC buddies, which, all in all, is bad form.

schuey100 · May 29, 2008, 02:16 PM

Still not convinced

Any anyone needing a virus checker to tell if they're forwarding an email that has a virus in it needs checking out themselves

Chuckit · May 29, 2008, 03:52 PM

So when one of my college teachers sent me an assignment, without any kind of virus checking, I should have just intuited that she was passing on a virus from her computer?

Medievalist · May 29, 2008, 07:02 PM

I have my students submit all of their work electronically, generally in the form of MSWord files.

Since I'm only running OS X on this machine, I don't anticipate a problem with viruses, but when I was running XP on an old Compaq, Kaspersky would regularly find viruses in the attachments.

I don't want to make the mistake of thinking I'm invulnerable just because I've switched to Mac.

davidg14 · Jun 1, 2008, 07:38 AM

I'm quite sure it's a prank

Don't worry.

chabig · Jun 1, 2008, 09:11 AM

Originally Posted by Medievalist

I don't want to make the mistake of thinking I'm invulnerable just because I've switched to Mac.

Don't worry. You are invulnerable.

turtle777 · Jun 1, 2008, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by Medievalist

I have my students submit all of their work electronically, generally in the form of MSWord files.

Since I'm only running OS X on this machine, I don't anticipate a problem with viruses, but when I was running XP on an old Compaq, Kaspersky would regularly find viruses in the attachments.

That's not entirely true.

IF the M$ Office document contains a Macro virus, your Office for Mac is vulnerable, too. But only if it's Office for Mac 2004 or lower, those versions included support for Visual Basic scripts and macros.

However, I'm not sure how much issues those macro viruses can cause on the host computer.
All the Macro viruses I have encountered back in the 90s were more like worms, propagated, but didn't cause any harm. YMMV.

-t

@pplejaxkz · Jun 1, 2008, 09:38 PM

Originally Posted by schuey100

What on earth would ClamXav find? I mean, it sounds like the most ridiculous application ever. Personally I'd stop running it, waste of time.

You went to a site that said you had been hacked. First, it's unlikely that a site will tell you, it sounds like one of those scare sites that pop up. Second, you were on it with Safari, no hacker in their right mind is going to spend time writing up a trojan for OSC so they might get one in every 10m users that visit the site.

So my advice, don't worry about it unless you think your machine is playing up.

I would agree with schuey. You'd have to ask yourself if a virus is supposed to do damage, why would it tell you it's there instead of sneaking around in the background. I think you should be fine. I've never ran any type of virus scanning application on my Macbook since I bought it a year ago.

On my old Dell I was running Ad-Aware everyday and Norton every few days. Bottom line, I think you're fine unless you've seen a change in any of your applications.