Is Reuters.com infected with malware?

The Lobby
1

Is anyone having malware-infection problems with Reuters.com ?

I have several RSS news feeds on my browser home-page, including Reuters World News and Reuters Business News. For the past 24 hours, or so, I have gotten the following warning from my Ad-Aware antivirus/anti-spyware app, whenever I try to access one of these Reuters feeds —

1009×611

In addition to the Reuters feeds, I have the following RSS feeds: DailyFX, MSNBC, AP World News, AP Business News, Financial Times, Bizjournals.com, and Fox Sports News. All of these are accessible in the usual way, and are unaffected by whatever is screwing up Reuters.

When this started, I purged my computer by running CCleaner, and then ran deep scans with both Ad-Aware and Windows Defender. After all this housekeeping, I’m still having the same issues with the Reuters feeds.

I tried accessing Reuters directly from my browser (Google Chrome) by entering www.Reuters.com into the address bar (instead of clicking on the RSS feed on my home-page), and I got the same warning from Ad-Aware.

Ad-Aware says that I can go ahead and connect to the Reuters site, despite being warned; but, I have not done that.

• I’m wondering whether anyone else is having this issue?

• Are you able to connect to Reuters using the link which I provided, above?

• Is there anyone out there who has Ad-Aware antivirus/anti-spyware installed and running, who is able to connect to Reuters.com without a problem?

• If I’m the only person having this problem, does anyone have a suggestion for how to trouble-shoot the source?

Thanks, in advance, if you can help.

2

I have Avast! web shield, Prevx SafeOnline and Norton DNS set at high detection levels and have no trouble going to Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com

Here a scan at VT https://www.virustotal.com/url/0bcbc39343bee8ece0d25881d7e73536908693e8d16d92378fc7f8973c66276e/analysis/1339880128/ reuters comes clean…

Maybe is a false positive from Ad-aware… you better contact them about this issue…

or sometimes are the ads in the site that are served by a third party, here AVG url scanner reports 2 threats in the last 30 days… Reuters.com | Safety: Probably Safe. Social: 10/10 | AVG Threat Labs

3

Thanks, yunny

When I click on [B]your[/B] Reuters link, I get the same Ad-Aware warning. So, the problem must be with Ad-Aware. I will take your suggestion, and contact them.

In the meantime, I hope that I will hear from some other forum members who also have Ad-Aware, to find out whether they are having the problem that I’m having.

Thanks again for your reply.

4

Hi Clint,

Hope you’re well?

My wife works for Thomson-Reuters, so between us we use a lot of Reuters kit at home (we both work largely from home, so I’m kind of banned from Bloomberg in case Claire notices…!) so between us we use a lot of Reuters feeds, from the mainstream stuff through to a number of the blogs etc., and we use both customer side and staff side, obviously, on both our home network and the TR network (we have access from home, and on iPads etc) and have never had any issues. I use McAfee for my malware etc blocker, it is pretty sensitive but has never given me any issue with Reuters feeds or sites.

I’m not a Reuters apologist - nor is Claire! - but I can sincerely say that I doubt that the issue was at their end, as I think I would have run into it with the range of their stuff I see.

ST

5

Hi, ST

Yes, you are correct. Reuters was (and is) just fine.

The problem was inside my computer.

I have Ad-Aware Pro installed as my antivirus/anti-spyware app. This is Ad-Aware’s top-of-the-line product; but, during the Reuters episode, it was not able to detect any sort of problem.

I called Ad-Aware Customer Support; and, by accessing my computer remotely, they were able to find a whole nest of problems which their “Pro” app could not see. I suspect that these problems were the result of old age (the computer’s, not mine), and not viruses or spyware. Anyway, Ad-Aware could not fix or remove what they found, but referred me to Microsoft Technical Support, instead.

I wasn’t kidding about my computer’s age — it turned 7 years old in May, and all of its maintenance and upgrades have been done by me (and, I’m not a techie). Prior to this, it had never had any professional attention. Anyway, for a hefty price, Microsoft removed a bunch of stuff from my computer, and changed a bunch of settings, and since then all is well.

I’m a big fan of CCleaner, which I run at least once a week. It’s like a colon-cleanse for computers — it gets rid of all sorts of crap. And it fixes registry errors. But, it can’t get at everything. It’s frustrating to find that there are deeper levels within a computer, where problems can build up, and where even a robust cleaner can’t help.

My computer is definitely female. I call her Chloe. With a lot of caresses and flattery, I manage to keep her content most of the time. But, occasionally, she gets into a real snit.

Here is Chloe in one of her “moods” —

6

Sometimes the ounce of prevention is worse than the pound of cure.