• Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    I know this story is more-so about a trojan in a trusted place, and not general security, but I have an anecdote to share.

    So, time to fess up here. I previously complained about Google trapping me in captcha-hell for enabling Ublock Origin.

    I was wrong.

    Turns out that I had visited a movie streaming site a while before to watch a season of some show, I forget which. Without any downloads or noticeable input on my part. My Linux box apparently got hacked/malware. All I did was click the occasional “I am a human” box on the website, and sit back with popcorn.

    I found out when my ISP starting blocking IP addresses some time later. I checked my modem’s logs, and they showed some unexplained traffic to impossible “unassigned” IP addresses afterward. I didn’t notice for a while.

    I was stupid. Even worse, my phone also started behaving badly after that. I think I watched the last few episodes in bed, so must have infected that too.

    Don’t assume any system is automatically safe.

      • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I hope so. It’s more likely something infected Firefox itself, and didn’t get into the OS. But when I checked the modem logs, it happened up to a couple of months after the fact. That’s worrying.

        What’s even more worrying is that a couple of websites told me I had an IP address that didn’t match my home IP, but would provide the correct one if I refreshed the page a couple of times. So some kind of covert proxy or VPN type of thing was happening.

        I ended up just wiping everything, to be safe. Still a bit paranoid though.