On another Wiki I go to, everyone's on their toes about a virus that has apparently surfaced on Wikia.
My programs haven't been able to detect anything, though I still worry if my computer might have discreetly picked something up (sometimes viruses/spyware take a while to make themselves known). It seems a bunch of folks have been getting viruses from Wikias lately, including this very one. I'd hate for this place to be shut down or discontinued because of some stupid viruses going around on Wikia. Anyone here gotten any nasty viruses or oddities yet? It seems like it's a "luck" sort of thing (though you can't really call it luck).
-One of their blogs
One of them said it may be the Vurdo Trojan, since a person (or two now, it seems) from the fandom LJ has been struggling with this virus. Though we are not completely sure it comes from the Wiki, one of the other editors said that they had just deleted "...some type of trojan that mimics anti-spyware on their machine, and it's clogging things up". As the excerpt above states, viruses have been found all around Wikia lately.
I have not yet found this virus on my machine yet, but I have yet to run a complete thorough sweep of my computer. The virus is also said to be in the Ads, and I have Ad-Block Plus for FireFox. (Which has been recommended to the members of the Wikia as a result of this incident. It's an excellent add-on regardless)
Anyway, I just thought I'd let people be aware of the possibility of a virus. Here is the Wikia Forum Thread about the issue.
Just another reminder to make sure you've got good virus software! I just wanted to let you guys all know, just in case!
If you're running on Mac or Linux, then this shouldn't affect you. From what it looks like, it's targeting PC users only. And the Vurdo trojan targets only PC users running on systems Windows 95, 98, 98SE, NT, ME, 2000, and XP. Vista and 7 are not affected by Vurdo.
It's current unknown how people are getting this trojan but if people are getting this through the ads, then I HIGHLY recommend going to FireFox (if you haven't already) and get the popular add-on Ad-Block Plus installed. Also, make sure your anti-virus system is updated. If you don't have one, AVG is usually a recommended choice by many.