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Android Forums is loaded with malware ads

nerdmastax

nerdmastax

Well-Known Member
Its getting to the point that I am about to pull support from your site. The malicious ads when browsing on android are getting to be too much. you need to crack down on your ad providers or choose another one asap. I do not want users of my rom getting viruses on their phone via this site and badgering me about the issue.

I have no problem with honest ads, and I hope that this is making you aware of this problem for the first time and that it will be handled asap. I trust that you see how big of an issue it is for an android help forum to have viruses being distributed through its site's ads. especially when clicking on the ad is not required to load a series of pages, popups and fake and real play store malware. Oh and once those popups decide to start you cant even get back to android forums without starting all over again from a fresh page.

Edit by staff - Please see: http://phandroid.com/2015/02/03/google-play-apps-found-with-android-adware/
 
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i load this on my android and my laptop and i have not received a single popup nor do i have a blocker on my phone currently.i dont know what your refering to but whatever malware issues you are having is not coming from this site as far as i can tell
 
nerdmastax said:
especially when clicking on the ad is not required to load a series of pages, popups and fake and real play store malware.
Click to expand...

@Phases, I can confirm this is happening. When using a mobile Chrome on my stock Moto X it will load to the top of a thread and hang, then jump to the first unread post as expected. Immediatly following that it goes through two redirects to somewhere offsite. I've hit the back button before the page loaded, so I don't know what's on the other end, but one of the ads is hijacking traffic with no action from the user.
 
hmmm so this is an issue?funny idk why its not affecting me as i add support and check this regularly.course im using dolphin browser and i have an option on my phone to opt out of ads.might be why,unsure.if more than this guys saying this then,a solution does need to be made and i appoligize to the op.ive never seen this ever as an issue before however,must be something new
 
Can you link me to a thread this is happening on? Logged on or off? I'm trying to recreate. I did get an email this morning about this, too, from a guest.
 
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it keeps happening in my thread, i had to move my rom to xda until this is sorted because i am afraid to use the site on my phone. its a pity too because this site used to be really good. I hope you get it resolved, please someone pm me when you do fix it and i will come back.


From my history,
spaces.slimspots.com <-------------this redirects to google
tracking.crobo.com
and establishconnection.com <----- this heads to a fake porn cam site when browsed on the pc
then it points you to a fake playstore app
 
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Ever since the forum update I can't click on any freaking link without being rerouted thru 3 F-ing pages and end up in the play store WITHOUT TOUCHING ANY STORE LINKS!!! FIX THIS SHIT!!
 
I can't get it to happen on your thread with stock browser or chrome but will keep trying. I'd love to get a place where it is super consistent for our developer. I'll add these URLS to the ticket. Actually, they are the same as what was reported by someone else via email - but they added a few more.

Still, I'll add that yours is showing the same ones.
 
URLs are in plain tags so they don't render.


lyft://?mat_click_id=02e2c0d0e67898192a84490430d4dc02-20150112-6656

ht tps://102500.api-02.com/serve?action=click&publisher_id=102500&site_id=15284&invoke_id=2908&device_id=&android_id=&mac_address=&odin=&ref_id=102e9c583d02dc0065ffdd22c3a3db&sub_publisher=1401232&google_aid=&sub2=adaction&sub_campaign=passenger_usa_display_managed_android&cost_model=CPI&cost=3.75

ht tp://alert.mobilesecurityalert.mobi/antivirus/adb48d1f06aeba67466fbefc5c929ef3/detection.html?cid=3yuqKrr3qud-lVCl8p2Ekw&tid=1421068394

ht tp://naughtynextdoorgirls.com

I went through a few others too, but I couldn't grab the urls as the redirects were too fast. Again, this was opening this thread, after the jump to first unread. I had to get the links here via notepad as it killed my browser. I had to FC to get my mobile browser working again.

Also, this kept popping up (note, I have no AV on my phone).
2015-01-12 13.12.53.png
 
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Thank you for recognizing this problem. As others have said as well: it doesn't matter what page or browser I use to load AF (mostly Chrome as Stock browsers tend to glitch & FC at most inopportune times) but this is getting rediculous as I can't back out of the redirects and have to wipe the page and restart the browser to get back to the page I was originally on. It happens 95% of the time with almost ANY page or link in AF. I also have one of the best AntiVirus apps on the market and yet STILL get BS notification that I'm infected. Browsers DON'T scan for viruses! Also can't count HOW MANY TIMES I've had to fix my mother's phone cuz of these ridiculous popups telling her she needed to DL something that wasn't necessary.. Back in the day a PC would tell u TRUTHFULLY that something important needs updating, not the daily BS/Bloatware that we have been getting since your update to Xenforo. Plz fix this or the forum risks losing everyone to other forums
 
not to burst your bubble but back in the day a site could download and install a dialer and run up your phone bill, ads were kind of exactly like this, everywhere. and there was no ad blocker. pop up blocking had to be done by a plugin for years... this truthful era you speak of was the first few years after google ads took over, then they went a lil crooked too.
 
I think this is related to the ad network and not the forum software, but it's above my level, so I could be wrong. For expediency and ease of reading for the folks that can fix this let's keep the off topic banter to a minimum.:)
 
Yes, this would be far from the first time that whichever ad network(s) we use have started loading something dodgy.

Likewise, I can't replicate it on any of my devices on any thread, which is usually the case with problematic ads, as they seem to serve different ads to different countries and I'm in the UK.
 
I don’t know if this might help ...

I use Internet Explorer on a Windows workstation. I have not recognized any problems. I never click on any ad (being a premium subscriber I wonder why I even see the ads).

The following was done afyter wiping my cache and without me logging on to Android Forums.

I had not loaded Opera in a long time. When I did today and selected some page in Android Forums I got blasted with 10 dialogs from Flash Player.

I reloaded Opera and tried again. This time I got blasted with 3 dialogs. They said ...
Flash player stopped a potentially unsafe operation.
The following local application on your computer network:
javascript: \
Is trying to communicate with Internet-enabled location:
xxxxxx
To let this application communicate with the Internet, click Settings.
You must restart the application after changing settings.
​
The xxxxxxxx was ...
s0.2mdn.net
static.adsafeprotected.com
static.adsafeprotected.com​

Reloaded Opera and went directly to Android Forums root ...
No error dialog
Went to Turbo forum ...
Received 10 error dialogs all identifying ...
cdn.flashtalking.net​

Tried Firefox ... no errors
Tried Safari ... no errors

... Thom
 
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nerdmastax said:
not to burst your bubble but back in the day a site could download and install a dialer and run up your phone bill, ads were kind of exactly like this, everywhere. and there was no ad blocker. pop up blocking had to be done by a plugin for years... this truthful era you speak of was the first few years after google ads took over, then they went a lil crooked too.
Click to expand...
Lmfao. Bubble bursted. But this is still unnecessary crap to deal with. Every redirect takes me to either 360 AV or casino poker in Playstore.
 
I always read the forums at home on my Win7 PC with Firefox. I have AdBlock installed in Firefox, I also have Disconnect Addon in FireFox and NoScript Addon. In addition to that AdFender is installed at the Win7 system level.

All that said, I watch the links flashing by and I keep seeing this one every time I look at a thread.
cdn.flashtalking.net

Flash does not even work in Firefox for me, so that helps to keep me from seeing junk there. If I need to see something in Flash bad enough, I copy the link and use Chrome which has its' own Flash viewer.

Even with all of the above methods of "preventing adverts", the forum pages still show a huge amount of adverts which appear to be images rather than links.
 
Unforgiven said:
URLs are in plain tags so they don't render.


lyft://?mat_click_id=02e2c0d0e67898192a84490430d4dc02-20150112-6656

ht tps://102500.api-02.com/serve?action=click&publisher_id=102500&site_id=15284&invoke_id=2908&device_id=&android_id=&mac_address=&odin=&ref_id=102e9c583d02dc0065ffdd22c3a3db&sub_publisher=1401232&google_aid=&sub2=adaction&sub_campaign=passenger_usa_display_managed_android&cost_model=CPI&cost=3.75

ht tp://alert.mobilesecurityalert.mobi/antivirus/adb48d1f06aeba67466fbefc5c929ef3/detection.html?cid=3yuqKrr3qud-lVCl8p2Ekw&tid=1421068394

ht tp://naughtynextdoorgirls.com

I went through a few others too, but I couldn't grab the urls as the redirects were too fast. Again, this was opening this thread, after the jump to first unread. I had to get the links here via notepad as it killed my browser. I had to FC to get my mobile browser working again.

Also, this kept popping up (note, I have no AV on my phone).
View attachment 80289
Click to expand...

I am using an ad blocker and I have still been redirected to these "you are infected" pages a couple of times recently when clicking a thread title. Not consistently and not often, so I can't be much help, but can confirm it's happening. Between all of the "dating" ads and now this, you need to have a stern talking-to with your ad people.

P.S.-I was able to back out without crashing my browser.
 
Can confirm. I've seen this not only on Android Forums, but other sites as well. Major ones too. It's definitely some ad company gone awry. Tried to get it to pull up again, but it seems the malicious ads were already removed. Really weird. :/
 
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