Oh dear interpeeps...I do not even know where to begin. I have not fallen off the face of the earth. It has been almost a month since I blogged. So much has been going on, I do not even know how to start. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I haven't been commenting on any blogs at all. Maybe you didn't miss my "words of wisdom" (insert sarcasm). I will try and be okay with that. This is going to be long, but bear with me, I haven't talked to you all in a while.
Three Fridays ago I was working from home and by 4 pm, I was done with my work. No commute, better efficiency, earlier work getting done. Anyway, it was one of the most complex calculation and analysis I had done in my three year engineering career and I breathed a sigh of relief after sending it for editing. I figured I should celebrate by cooking something special. Not that the cooking was a celebration, but the eating is and I don't get to eat special stuff unless I cook it. I am not a huge fan of eating out and the things I want, you get in no restaurant in America. So I set out to make something called puttu and kadala. I have no translation for puttu, but kadala is chick peas curry. I wanted to do a quick check as to how to make the curry and I navigated to a website that I usually go to to get recipes for my cooking. It went to the website and then my laptop hung. My computer got infected. If you weren't paying attention, it was my WORK LAPTOP.
With all the complex analysis on a CONFIDENTIAL project I was working on.
The name of the virus was infostealer.
I completely and totally freaked out.
To cut a long story and the tears and anxiety short, I called corporate, they started working on it, and now we seemed to have killed it. But I made a decision. I will only go to one non-work related website at work. And that is gmail. And I have been doing that since. So, while I am reading all your blogs (or the ones I get the entire post in reader), I do not click on over to your site to comment. Not because I think your site is bad. But a lot of you have a bunch of third party functionality enabled in your blogs and you could just be the innocent victim. Maybe it is all fine and I am overreacting. But I am erring on the side of caution here.
And now I find it difficult to write this paragraph. I am not intentionally targeting anyone, but I just wanted to share what my virus checker found. It found that the site Biblical womanhood had installed an adware on my laptop. It is not a site I read regularly. I must have gone there a while back. It just sucks that innocent people are the victims of this kind of malicious stuff. The adware must have come from some harmless thing she has running on the site. I just mentioned that so that people are aware.
This post has gone on long enough, maybe I will write some more soon in another post.
Till then, y'all be safe.
7 comments:
Your absence was noticed! Glad it wasn't due to horrible illness and hospitalization or something (or do I have to wait for a second post and find out?).
I take it your employers weren't too upset? Hubby's work is really, really cracking down on what sites they can visit. Not a problem for him, but probably for his coworkers who spend paid hours browsing ESPN.... ;)
So are we talking about something beyond regular cookies (the adware thing)? I clear cookies almost daily.
My heart about stopped until I read your work was okay! *shudders*
As I read this post, I had an "aha' moment. Last week, my computer was also effected with adware after I visited that blog as well. Not trying to blame the blogger one bit, but I could not figure out where on earth I had picked up anything, but this could possibly explain the happening. I'm very cautious about what sites I go to and have all the latest anti-virus software. Being the computer illiterate person I am, removing the adware was quite problematic, but I did finally do so, thanks to the help of a blogging friend's husband. He talked me through the entire process over the phone. (She also had an adware issue recently. :o()
Is there anything I might need to remove from my site to keep others safe? Feel free to laugh at my ignorance. ;o)I don't have any ads on my sidebar and everything I do have is either a picture with HTML code for link or else something supported bu blogger itself. Well, except for my background. This is from The Cutest Blog on the Block.
Same here. I also visited that site and my computer was infected. Thankfully, I unplugged it from the wall and called my dad who walked me through on getting rid of it. I have not been back since nor do I ever plan on visiting again.
SO glad to hear your work was recovered and treated before it was destroyed!!
Oh, goodness! I audibly gasped when I read that your computer with the complex whatsit was infected. I'm glad it looks like things will be okay with that. Wow.
I have noticed your absence, and I'm glad to read that you're fine. There's never any expectation for comments on my blog, although they are nice, so no worries! I'm just glad to see that you're around and doing well (other than stressing over the computer thing).
I'll have to have my hubby check stuff on my computer for me. I'm not very computer savvy, so he's my guy for all things computer.
Not that I get enough blog traffic to warrant ads for a little income, but this makes me definitely think twice about ever adding them!
Wow. My dad took off Firefox and is using Safari now...it had picked up something as well. I'm so glad your work computer ended up being OK.
I can only imagine your panic - glad everything was ok :)
Allison
Being the completely random blogger and commenter that I am, I understand. However, I have missed you and have thought about you often the last few weeks. Can you email me? kylajean@hotmail.com...I have thought several time that I would like to drop you an email but of course never saved your email address.
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