Malicious URL What is that?

dogfish12

I've just been on a sea fishing forum from south wales. All of a sudden avast reports `malicious url blocked`. What is a malicious url? Could this warning be mistaken. Its happened twice and I will not be visiting this site again. Many thanks.

GunJack

it usually means the website (i.e. the address, or url in techie speak) has virus/malware on it and your antivirus has blocked it...sounds like it'sdoing it's job

dogfish12

Thx for that Any idea why a site talking about beach fishing in south wales would have this on it?

dogfish12

Another thing is that the warning does not activate on entering the site, only within it.

Kiramanic

It could be a few things, I'm not particularly technie so can't explain them in any great detail but:

1. The site could've been hacked, and the hacker has inserted malicious code to infect the site's visitors.

2. It could be a false positive, I'm not sure what usually causes these but I've seen anti-virus software freak out at nothing a few times.

3. It could be an ad or other script designed to look like a virus warning. These usually get you to accept a "scan" or something in order to install crap on your computer.

If it's a site you visit regularly I would try and get in touch with the administrator since if they've been hacked they'll want to know about it asap.

RussJK

Edit: Avast appears to have fixed the problem, so just update it and the problem should disappear.

Avast had a new update on Monday which reported many forums as false positives; you weren't the only one having this issue so don't worry It seemed to block certain portions of forum software, not necessarily the whole site.