I work at a downtown library in Network Support and we are being hit right now by a virus which seems to be caused by some embedded YouTube videos our patrons are viewing.
Apparently some sort of relatively aggressive virus is affecting certain embedded YouTube videos. Some are saying it affects IE and Firefox users, while others say it’s only going after IE. The virus is called Actns/Swif.T and seems to contain a redirect to a phishing website embedded within a SWF file.
The site apparently installs Antivirus 2009, which is malware. We’ll pull our most recent YouTube embeds, but be careful because this one appears to have just broken out today. If you find yourself being automatically redirected or experience other weird pop-ups, especially for something called Antivirus 2009, don’t click on anything.
Our public PCs can not be infected with the malware but is causing network stoppages and weird error messages. I will update this post when get more information…
UPDATE 12/3 – The YouTube virus appears to be nothing but a false positive caused by CA eTrust AV which we use at the library that seems to flag embedded code used in the videos (CrunchGear link in post is also updated). There has been updated signatures sent out by CA that everyone using their products should download. I don’t have these types of problems at home since don’t use realtime AV software. A properly setup Linux machine with no IE is all you really need.
Filed under: Computers, Internet, Linux, Security, Technology, Video | Tagged: Actns/Swif.T, Antivirus 2009, CA antivirus false positive, Computers, Internet, Linux, malware, phishing, Security, Software, Technology, Video, virus, virus alert, YouTube, YouTube virus
Good to know, great tip. thanks for the tip.
I had planned on using some videos.
but I may not now,I will be more cautious,thanks
What about if you just watch some videos?
~Clerical Business Solutions
You should be OK as long as don’t click on any pop-ups, re-directed pages, or install anything (unless know why and what are installing) if asked to when watching any videos. You should all ready be doing that when browsing normally everyday.
I may suggest to use FireFox instead of IE for better protection.
It’s a CA false positive. Check back at CrunchGear.
@Shards Henry
Thanks, at the library we do use CA eTrust AV 7.x and there was signature updates in regards to this and I just haven’t had a chance to update my post.