MySpace can give you viruses

Lots of bands use MySpace. Some new movies only give MySpace urls. (I think this is dumb for a lot of reasons, and it will fade...) One good reason is that, according to the website MarketingProfs: Daily Fix:

Illicit Adware Infects MySpace Users

MarketingVOX: Up to a million users of MySpace and other sites serving up an ad for patio furniture this month may have been infected with surreptitious adware.

Delivered by ad networks, a banner ad for DeckOutYourDeck.com that ran on MySpace and other sites earlier this month was rigged to install up to five adware programs on the computers of users browsing an unpatched version of Internet Explorer, reports PC Mag. When malware security analyst Michael La Pilla of VeriSign's iDefense reported the problem, MySpace had already taken down the ad and was attempting to find the culprits.

For what it is worth, the virus tried to get on my computer when I used MySpace. I didn't know it was the ad at the top of the webpage though. I thought it was some of those stupid vidoes, questionnaires, or downloads that the bands have scattered all over their pages that make it very hard to see the virus. In my case, AVG Antivirus caught it.

Whatever, please update the IE patch (and I have to do this too!) and run a virus scan. (Choose the Start button and then Windows Update if you have 2000. I think my XP computer updates automatically.) This stuff is going to a computer server in Russia, which you don't want!

Mom at RockStarParent

Comments

[Ann Handley]

Hi Rock Star Mom -- Thanks for the mention on your blog. But the name of our site is actually MarketingProfs, not Sherpa. That's a whole nuther site. Anyway, thanks again!