This is fairly pressing. I've seen this happen a few times. NOT HERE. Elsewhere. Small passages of text in messages or on posts on a social media website become live. This means they can be clicked on. I understand it is a problematic thing. Where do these links go? How did they even get there? And so fast after a message or a post is written? What is the correct term for these creatures? Any input from the more tech savvy is appreciated. I think others could also benefit from knowing.
In some cases, people will put a hyperlink in the middle of a sentence linking to an example of what they're talking about, sometimes wikipedia or whatever. Fairly trendy in blogs. Could it be something like that? If it's on a webpage, browsers usually show the url of the link you hover over (on chrome it's lower left) in case you think it's linking to bad websites (with viruses, malware, etc...). ---------- Post added 13th Jun 2015 at 11:27 PM ---------- For example, Tightrope posted a question about links...
I know my iPhone will attempt to parse anything that looks like it could be a date, time, telephone number, or url and make it clickable. The link goes to wherever the text would go... A phone number, it would attempt to dial. A date or time, it would attempt to add to my calendar. Is that what you are seeing?
I think it's bad. It's random. To be clear, it's on another fairly popular site that shouldn't be having these issues. An incoming message picked up a few letters in the middle of a sentence as a hyperlink. I also saw it occur on some stuff on my profile page (just a few letters go live) a couple of months ago and also on some other people's profile pages. The changing of my profile page ON ANOTHER SITE was done by "I have no clue." The recent message was from a friend who just typed 2 sentences and sent them. I am 99.9% sure he wouldn't be into this sort of thing. I don't even think he'd know how. He has a regular office job and is not too tech-y. So, if I'm thinking bad, how did they get there ... and so fast? By the way, thanks very much for answering! ---------- Post added 13th Jun 2015 at 09:22 PM ---------- Not really. It would be something like the last 2 letters of one word and the first 2 letters of the next. In another case, some letters in my profile were changed (about 2 to 3 months ago). Yes, dots, or periods, were added and, in the message, not deliberately. Very strange and I did not click on them. I am now more cautious about this other website.
Some of those keywords/phrases are picked up by the website's server and converted to links...for advertising purposes. I say... never click them because such ads are annoying, and there's always a chance of what awesomeyodais said - the site has become infected with a virus/malware... Personally I recommend not using Internet Explorer, and getting FireFox(or one of its variants), then getting 2 addons: AdBlock Plus (or AdBlock Edge) and NoScript.
Sort of sounds like what SimplyJay says. I also add a vote for NoScript. It can be a pain at times, because by default (at least for me) it blocks all JavaScript, and most websites depend on JavaScript. But blocking JavaScript may increase security, it can block ads, and it definitely speeds up the system. (The speed alone is a huge issue for me--I tend to use older hardware. Current computer was made when Bush was still in office.) One can enable scripts as needed, either permanently (e.g. Empty Closets is permanent on my system), or temporarily. ---------- Post added 13th Jun 2015 at 10:03 PM ---------- I have no recent experience with Ad Block, but it does suddenly occur to me that something like that might be easier for normal people to live with than NoScript.
Thank you everyone. I understand a little better. When this was fresh, and I was spending a night in a hotel, the front desk guy was tech savvy (those damn "younger" people) recommended Malware Bytes or some such thing. I already have a security suite and would be uncomfortable commingling these. However, it looks like the suite picked up and blocked something right around that time, so I feel better about that. Again, thanks for all the insight.
It's going to be difficult to deal in hypotheticals, and due to privacy and this site's policies I fully understand you can't show us too much information. I know I sometimes get weird private messages on a well-known general public messenger program that begins with a Y - the messages that have the same text, coming from more than one contact, and linking to some link that doesn't seem legit, I'm guessing these people have some virus running on their computer and it takes over their messenger program... could be some of that at play here? If possible, check one of those pages on another computer, or using a different browser (put it in "private browsing" mode if you can) and see if those links still appear - this is to rule out if it's the website or your computer. Make sure your antivirus is up to date etc...
This is absolutely malware and it can sometimes be very tricky to get rid of. Usually, it installs itself as an addon in your browser and if you're lucky you can see it. Check your addons for stuff you do not recognize. Webcake is one example of something you don't want and does this. Most scanners will not scrub your browser so I really do suggest scanning with malwarebytes. There's also another scanner specifically made for scanning your browser that I currently forgot the name of, but I'll look it up. I really hope this will be easy for you because sometimes these are really stubborn. When my mom's PC got one of these I had to go into the registry and manually remove registry keys and it was a pain.
same here on using older hardware LOL (my 'main' computer could probably be considered a dinosaur since its Win 98se, (also have newer stuff for when its needed) ) I will 2nd that guys recommendation of MalwareBytes (the free version)... and also add a recommendation of MalwareBytes Anti Exploit (again free version), this one in particular will block things like flash-exploits (and other such auto-install nasties) on websites that a normal virus checker can miss. (works with all the common browsers, but not the oddballs) . (note: if you have Win XP, use version 1.05.1016 or below -for now- as the newer one can have compatibility issues)
