Unusual McAfee UM Forum pages warning

by **JimboPSM** » October 16, 2011, 9:40 pm

Today the virus protection on my Netbook has just started warning me about content on a number of pages which it has blocked; a cursory check revealed that all but one index pages I looked at had the warning whereas most threads did not.

I don’t know what the content may actually be as I haven’t unblocked the content.

This is a screenshot of the warning:

This is the first occasion that this has happened and I don’t know if there is any substance in the warning or whether McAfee is being excessively paranoid :-k

by **jackspratt** » October 16, 2011, 10:29 pm

No problem here, using Avast 6, and Malwarebytes live protection.

by **trubrit** » October 17, 2011, 6:28 am

Don't know if it's associated but my Firefox popup blocker is coming in every time I change page, even though I have disabled it in contents page. The strange thing it doesn't actually block it. just delays it opening .Only on this forum I might add .

by **JimboPSM** » October 17, 2011, 9:41 am

The warning has also appeared on a couple of the other sites I visit and has been on most pages of UM (not just the forum).

The only thing I’ve found in common is that the warning only seems to appear on pages which usually contain external content and links such as found in Google ads - pages I have looked at on sites with little or no external content (such as BBC News) do not carry the warning.

The McAfee Site Advisor icon for UM is green and the Site Advisor report for UM states “We tested this site and didn't find any significant problems”.

While I haven’t changed any security settings it has only occurred since running CCleaner yesterday, I’m wondering whether this may be unique to my machine with some kind of interaction or conflict from running CCleaner, one of the regular updates from McAfee and/or my other security settings

by **lee** » October 17, 2011, 9:54 am

Hi Jim, have you clicked the link to view blocked content? I'd be interested to know what content it's blocking. Maybe there's a dodgey link or linked image in one of the posts. I've run several tests myself and can't find anything wrong.

trubrit wrote:Don't know if it's associated but my Firefox popup blocker is coming in every time I change page, even though I have disabled it in contents page. The strange thing it doesn't actually block it. just delays it opening .Only on this forum I might add .

The PM pop-up function was removed during the last software update and as far as I'm aware there are no other pop-ups on the site. Have you tried checking your settings in the FF add-on?

by **JimboPSM** » October 17, 2011, 10:30 am

lee wrote:Hi Jim, have you clicked the link to view blocked content? I'd be interested to know what content it's blocking. Maybe there's a dodgey link or linked image in one of the posts. I've run several tests myself and can't find anything wrong....

Being ever so slightly paranoid when I get a warning I tend to take notice of it - so I have not clicked on the link to view the content :lol:

However, I'll put my paranoia to one side and check next time I'm on my Netbook (taking great care not to click on anything) and if it is still there see if I can work out which content may be causing it or whether it may just be a rogue warning, if possible I'll do before and after screenprints.

I'm currently on my PC which has Norton and has no problems - other than the usual heavy resource utilisation

by **lee** » October 17, 2011, 10:48 am

JimboPSM wrote:Being ever so slightly paranoid when I get a warning I tend to take notice of it - so I have not clicked on the link to view the content

I believe the 'view blocked content' link will only show a list of what's been blocked and doesn't open the actual malicious files or websites. It's a bit like how virus software works, if it picks up a trojan it will list the name and where it was found on your system.

Therefore If there is a problem with certain image or link I can then take actions to remove it. If you could do those screen shots that would be very handy. Thanks.

by **rjj04** » October 17, 2011, 2:04 pm

Much ado about nothing... use Linux

by **JimboPSM** » October 17, 2011, 5:33 pm

The warning still appeared this morning so I clicked on “View all blocked content”, the page refreshed and was absolutely no different apart from the warning banner disappearing and a change in the displayed advertisements, there were no new links and apart from the change in advertisements the before and after screenprints were identical.

I tried the same thing on another site that I already had open and was displaying the same warning and got the same results.

The only difference I subsequently came across was opening sites which yesterday displayed the warning - today they did not.

Whatever it was, it appears to have gone away - apologies if I may have unduly alarmed anyone.

by **lee** » October 18, 2011, 10:49 am

Thanks for the update Jim, it's good to know it was only a temporary glitch.

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