New York Times Site Infects Visitors with Malware

The scary part about the internet is that no one is truly immune to viruses, even the biggest corporations with the smartest programmers. The latest example of that vulnerability is the New York Times. Today many people discovered the hard way that the New York Times website has been infected with a certain kind of virus that masquerades as an antivirus program. Many people don’t know how to identify those fake warnings and fell victim.

Fortunately, the New York Times identified the problem pretty quickly and posted a response article that details how the virus works and what to do if you think you’ve been infected. If you’ve been to the NYTimes site recently, you might want to take a look at that article just to be safe.

The virus is actually a fairly sophisticated attack that hijacks your web browser. The first thing you see is a pop-up ad, which takes over your browser and makes it appear that it is performing a virus scan. Then the malicious ad (unsurprisingly) finds a few viruses on your system and recommends antivirus software that can help. The problem is that the suggested antivirus programs are actually malware themselves, although as you can see in the image above, the creators have done a great job of making this malware look like a legitimate antivirus program. It’s a pretty easy way to fool many internet users into unwittingly infecting their own computers.

This is a problem on many sites, so you should beware of this kind of scam no matter where you go. And the New York Times is a perfect example of the fact that you shouldn’t feel completely safe just because you are surfing on a trusted site.

If you see pop-ups like this, always close the pop-up window without clicking any buttons (even the “cancel” button). Doing this will usually prevent the attack. Of course, you should take this tactic with any pop-up advertisements. Just to be safe, you can also clear your browser cache. This can be done through the options menu, but in many browsers you simply need to hit the F5 button or Ctrl+F5.

There is another surefire method to prevent these kinds of attacks. Get a legitimate Internet Security Suite that can perform all the antivirus tasks you need. Know the program well, so when you see a pop-up window that is not from your antivirus program, you automatically know it’s something malicious at worst and something you don’t need at best. The companies that provide legitimate antivirus software also keep your program updated with the latest virus profiles so that your computer is capable of recognizing new threats as well as the old ones.

Need help finding a legitimate antivirus program to protect you from these threats? Check out our Internet Security Suites review site where we compare the top brands. Security suites include other features like email filtering, monitoring and additional scans. If you just want a simple antivirus program for protecting your machine, you can also check out the review of Antivirus Software.

Whatever you decide, take action now so you can prevent problems later.