Looking for viruses in all the wrong places

Just had another attempt to load in a virus on my machine - or a trojan, or some stealthware of some sort. Of course, my firewall stopped it by alerting me first.

Came in through my article submitter, which is IE based and a security nightmare - as I've pointed out before.

This short post is to give you a simple piece of advice.

Your article submitter should be showing you which directory has been hacked when your firewall alerts you. In my case, the article submitter showed that there was some sort of SQL error. (Earlier versions of Article Dashboard had a known SQL exploit possible.)

I goofed up at that point and didn't note it down. Had I done that, I could have "un-registered" from that article directory and so kept it off my lines - and not risked infection again.

So when you get that next firewall alert:

1. Stop, take a deep breath.
2. Note what is happening and write it down (you could even email the article directory administrator - maybe - with what program is trying to hack your computer).
3. Make sure you have the domain name of that article directory.
4. Tell the firewall to nix it, tell the article submitter to skip that site, and continue submitting...
5. When you're done with that article, come back and unsubscribe from that article directory - and figure out if you can actually email that administrator or not.
6. Get on with your next article in your submission plan.

These steps should help you to speed your submission process - since you won't be stopping again at that site for the interruption.