Is this a virus?

[Leeza]

A few people seem to be receiving MSN links from me that I am not sending. My MSN also logs out on it's own during the night (probably when my AVG kicks in for it's daily scan) and I suspect that this is about the time that Momiji gets my link.

I ran SpyBot and AVG and no threats were found yet Momiji still keeps receiving this link from me even though I don't appear on his friends list as online or offline. Could this be coming from my end or from MSN or what? Of course this isn't bothering me any, but Momiji is getting tired of receiving these links from me.

Any help or advice on this would be appreciated.

[Momiji]

My input:

The links are always different, yet it always contains 'scarletcherryblossom' (my hotmail address) in the URL.

Also, they frequently happen in the morning, not at night. This particular screenshot was from just about 9 AM.

[~*~Celes~*~]

from my experience, it's a virus. Cookie was sending me weird links too on msn when it said he was offline and then I got a message where he informed me that it was a virus.

[Shoeberto]

It's either a virus on your system or some kind of hole in MSN's security that's allowing for people to spoof your name to send virus or ad links.

[Momiji]

Also, this isn't the first time something like this has happened. I got a similar link from Behold the Void once when he had a virus and it infected mine as well. But since neither I or Leeza have viruses, I'd have to say this is something else.

[Roto13]

Well, if you're signing off when these messages are being sent, it could be because your account is being signed into someplace else.

[Leeza]

Unless it's a virus that AVG or SpyBot can't find.

My AVG starts at 5:49 am. Momiji receives these much later and I don't know what time I get logged out at night because I'm not the one logging out.

[Jessweeee♪]

Death by Moogles sends me weird things over Yahoo! when he's running AVG. It's never a link though, I can't remember what it is, I just remember it had something like "fsrv" and "script" and brackets in it. One of my MSN friends also does this, but I don't know if she uses AVG :P

EDIT:

Whenever I copied and pasted it back to him, it was sent back to me, but he couldn't see it himself.

[Momiji]

I run AVG as well, and I have it set to scan at 4 AM, if that is relevant to this case at all.

[Tavrobel]

But since neither I or Leeza have viruses, I'd have to say this is something else.

It's most likely a worm. Difference, though, is null for the sake of argument. By the way, SpyBot isn't exactly built for getting rid of viruses, though it does have the ability to. It's actually more directly targeted at Spyware and the like, little things that leak information, not stuff that causes epic crash failure.

I would tell you to use your traditional anti-virus, and if nothing comes up, use SpyBot. But since you've probably tried that, simply Google what you think is an apt description of the situation, and hope you get a good hit. As far as AVG goes, try setting the auto-run to a time that is more convenient for you to monitor. If it's the AVG logging the messenger, then that's one less problem. Despite the whole "everything is going wrong" mentality, it is fairly important to know what problems are and are not related.

Or the whole damn thing could just be AVG being a jerk. But since most peoples' levels of awesome haven't quite gotten there yet, I don't recommend removing all of your sources of anti-virus.

[Momiji]

And here's the one from today.

[Flying Mullet]

I received those a couple of times from smittenkitten and let her know. She said she'd look into it and I haven't received any since. I don't know what she did to remedy the problem.

[Leeza]

Momiji, I didn't have my MSN on at all yesterday and it's still not on so I don't know how you managed to get that.

[Momiji]

Well, as Tavrobel said, it could very well be a worm on either side or both for that matter.



I have an idea. Do you have MSN set to log your conversations?

[Tavrobel]

One of the solutions I found online was to simply reinstall MSN and change your password.

A further explanation for those who see the unedited version of this post is that it's a vulnerability in MSN messenger itself. While the sending of links is in itself near harmless, actually clicking on the links is what could very well cause you to spiral out of control and drive a flaming plane into a train while shouting at the top of your lungs "F EQUALS M TIMES A SUCKAZ!"