Calling all computer-savvy investigative sorts.

theoriginaljayne

(This has nothing to do with fitness at all, but I have no friends anywhere else online *sob* and you all seem pretty smart, so...)

I was reading through the blonde jokes thread (yes, I'm bored), and remembered an old site – http://www.thatwasfunny.com – that used to have a hefty list of blonde jokes. I have not visited this site in a very long time – at least a year. So I Googled it and clicked on the appropriate link.

I was redirected to this URL: http://xan-axa.ru/in.cgi?5

Safari failed to open the page (in my idiocy, I forgot to remember why). I didn't get a warning from Google, but still, seems really suspicious.

So I fired up my Googling skills. Turns out, there's basically no information about this site – you can search, if you want. A Russian domain name registrar confirmed that it was, in fact, based in Russia, but I can't say that it had any other helpful information.

Basically – has anyone else ever heard of this site? Should I be avoiding doing anything that requires a password? Should I be running a malware scan? (I'll have to download one; I'm on a hand-me-down MacBook that has no extra security installed – I'm normally very careful on the internet, and this has never happened to me before). And if someone happens to have a computer with internet access that they no longer use and would happily toss out a window, if they were to visit the suspicious URL, I would be immeasurably grateful.

That's all. Thank you!

ScatteredThoughts

I haven't seen that particular site before, but many others like it - part of my job. They are bad. Avoid them.

theoriginaljayne

I haven't seen that particular site before, but many others like it - part of my job. They are bad. Avoid them.

I generally do – thatwasfunny.com used to be legitimate, and I had no idea that I'd be redirected. What should I do now? I wasn't warned that I was visiting a fraudulent website by Google, but if the site was obscure (which it seems to be) then that doesn't mean much. I've reset my browser and cleared the cache and cookies... I feel like an idiot at the moment.

ScatteredThoughts

I haven't seen that particular site before, but many others like it - part of my job. They are bad. Avoid them.

I generally do – thatwasfunny.com used to be legitimate, and I had no idea that I'd be redirected. What should I do now? I wasn't warned that I was visiting a fraudulent website by Google, but if the site was obscure (which it seems to be) then that doesn't mean much. I've reset my browser and cleared the cache and cookies... I feel like an idiot at the moment.

They tend to come and go pretty quickly, sometimes too fast to get listed accurately. I followed the trail a bit, and didn't see anything major which stood out. It could be that the bad guys just hadn't finished setting it up completely. Most likely you have nothing to worry about. Generally they target Adobe or MS Office products. Flashback is kind of a big deal now.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402725,00.asp - This article should give some guidance for making sure your system is clean.

christine24t

Try the Wayback Machine. Google Wayback Machine and then type in thatwasfunny.com. This site had taken screenshots of old websites. Several different days on a calender will pop up - click on one. You can usually see the first page of the website, but not the whole thing. Then click back and go to the other dates - different info should pop up, as the site probably changed constantly.

theoriginaljayne

I haven't seen that particular site before, but many others like it - part of my job. They are bad. Avoid them.

I generally do – thatwasfunny.com used to be legitimate, and I had no idea that I'd be redirected. What should I do now? I wasn't warned that I was visiting a fraudulent website by Google, but if the site was obscure (which it seems to be) then that doesn't mean much. I've reset my browser and cleared the cache and cookies... I feel like an idiot at the moment.

They tend to come and go pretty quickly, sometimes too fast to get listed accurately. I followed the trail a bit, and didn't see anything major which stood out. It could be that the bad guys just hadn't finished setting it up completely. Most likely you have nothing to worry about. Generally they target Adobe or MS Office products. Flashback is kind of a big deal now.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402725,00.asp - This article should give some guidance for making sure your system is clean.

Thank you very much for checking it out for me. I will read the article.

Edit: I ran one of the Flashback checks that the article linked to, and it didn't find anything. I'll run the other one anyway, and I might download the Sophos app as well, just to be safe. Thanks again!