Malicious link

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cmclough
Posts: 3
Joined: 22 Apr 2015 16:57

Malicious link

Post by cmclough »

The external website for the complete score of Mendelssohn's Paulus, listed on this page

http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/St. ... ndelssohn)

requires the user to download a reader in order to access scores. Clicking on that link infected my computer with "Mackeeper", as well as the supposedly required reader. I was trying to access the score from the web browser Safari on a MacBook Pro running the current MacOS.

This is my first-ever Mac virus in 28 years, and it would be great if CPDL administrators would look into this and take the necessary steps to block this user.

Thanks so much for your attention!
carlos
Site Admin
Posts: 1870
Joined: 19 Aug 2008 15:26
Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Malicious link

Post by carlos »

Hi, thank you for informing us of this problem. Could you please be more specific? Which of the links on that page requested you to download an installer? I've opened a couple of them but haven't received this message yet.

Thank you,
Carlos (talk)
CPDL Administration
cmclough
Posts: 3
Joined: 22 Apr 2015 16:57

Re: Malicious link

Post by cmclough »

Dear Carlos,

The CPDL link to full scores of Mendelssohn's "Paulus" goes to jennings.comule.com, where I was led to download a "reader" for the scores supposedly available.

I hope this answers your question. If not, please let me know, and I'll see what I can do to help. I'm afraid to get too deeply involved again, though, lest I infect another computer.

Best regards,
Christian
carlos
Site Admin
Posts: 1870
Joined: 19 Aug 2008 15:26
Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Malicious link

Post by carlos »

Dear Christian, thanks again for your feedback.

That's what I imagined: you probably encountered this problem at the NoteWorthy Software website, not on our contributor's site. MacKeeper is developed by Zeobit, a company that offers optimization tools for Mac users. Some people reported their product as a "malware", but strictly speaking, it's not a virus. It even has an article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKeeper

I can think of several alternatives:

1) NoteWorthy Software's website has been hacked and MacKeeper was introduced in their reader's installation package;
2) NoteWorthy Software included MacKeeper in their installation package as an agreement with Zeobit;
3) Your antivirus gave a false-positive alert;
4) Your browser is infected with an extension that downloaded MacKeeper without your consent and installed it alongside with the legit reader from NoteWorthy.

There are probably other explanations to what happened to you, but these are the ones that come to my mind at the moment. I downloaded the two versions of the reader from the site (portable, and with installer) and none of them offered to also install MacKeeper, so I would rule out the option 2 from the list above.
Carlos (talk)
CPDL Administration
vaarky
Moderator
Posts: 2163
Joined: 22 Aug 2008 07:28

Re: Malicious link

Post by vaarky »

Carlos, can you clarify if the link through which you downloaded Noteworthy without MacKeeper from Noteworthy's site is the same as the link for downloading Noteworthy that http://jennings.comule.com/Classic/Mend ... l/Paul.htm points to, or does the http://jennings.comule.com/Classic/Mend ... l/Paul.htm link to a potentially problematic different page?
carlos
Site Admin
Posts: 1870
Joined: 19 Aug 2008 15:26
Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Malicious link

Post by carlos »

Yes, I downloaded the installers from the website linked to on Jennings page, www.noteworthysoftware.com. It redirects to www.noteworthycomposer.com, which is the official site of that product.
vaarky
Moderator
Posts: 2163
Joined: 22 Aug 2008 07:28

Re: Malicious link

Post by vaarky »

So it sounds like we can also conclude that the http://jennings.comule.com/Classic/Mend ... l/Paul.htm page that is linked to from the score on CPDL is not (at least currently) infected with anything that engages in non-consensual software installation.
cmclough
Posts: 3
Joined: 22 Apr 2015 16:57

Re: Malicious link

Post by cmclough »

Thank you, all, for your research. I'm glad that no one else had a problem. At the Apple Store, it was diagnosed as adware, not malicious, but damned annoying.
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