Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hey, guys. Long time no see, eh?

I just wanted to give you all a heads up. I've been getting a lot of spam messages from GIB agents on my Yahoo! Instant Messenger contact list, asking me to take an IQ test. If you've ever gotten a message like that via YIM, and you clicked on the link, chances are your computer is infected and is sending out that same message to everyone on your buddy list to infect others.

If you think you may be infected, take the appropriate steps. Update and run your virus scanner, and do the same for any malware detection programs you might have, such as Spybot Search & Destroy or Adaware. Once the virus is removed, change your Yahoo! password.

I wish I could remember who all sent me that message, so you'd know who's infected, but all I have is the most recent username: "football_maniac182003." Unfortunately, I'm not sure which agent that belongs to.

Oh, and I've blocked the infected people from my contact list to stop them sending me that message. Sorry. If you think I've blocked you, once you get this mess cleaned up, let me know, and I'll undo it.

Oh, and... please let me know if you've received that message from me at any point. I never clicked on the link, so I shouldn't be infected, but... you never know.

TIIIIIIIM!! *glomp* heart

redface ... Uh, sorry. I was sad when I found out your weren't the boss anymore.

Anyway, I haven't been on YIM in like, years... I doubt you got any of these IMs from me.

Speaking of viruses, I got one from a Gaia ad a couple days ago. Well, not really a virus, but a malware infection, anyway. A fake virus scanner called antivirus.net. It was undetected by my actual antivirus program, even after a full scan. Fortunately it was fixed with a system restore. I've turned off Gaia's ads now. I have no idea what specific ad it actually came from, though. All I know is that I was on Gaia with no other tabs or anything open when it happened. neutral

So if anyone else gets that, just do a system restore to before you got it and it'll be fixed.

Haven't been on my YIM either...

It could have been a virus planted into YIM, and not the link itself. Any updates on YIM recently?

I've actually been having a lot of strange trouble with Yahoo IM lately. I've been getting like multiple friend requests from random people, people i think are bots of course on YIM, and I got that message about the IQ test too, the thing is, one of my friends that had sent it to me was talking to me the entire time, and she brought up the IQ test for some reason, don't know why, but I got a few replies back from, her so I'm not sure if it was a bot on her account or what talking to me, either way, I wasn't comfortable about it, and I certainly wasn't about to click the link.

I use Avast! virus protection, along with a lot of other programs and none of them have reported any type of infection. I hope that i'm not infected with anything and not knowing it.

I'm not sure actually. I myself am not too active on Yahoo at that for the most part. So it's certainly been a while since i talked with that person on my list, so i'm not sure if it was a bot that was talking with me or not.