Advice on potential malware on my Mac

[stevearcade]

Hi guys,

I've got an issue that's only effecting three websites I visit. They're three car forums. I moderate on one of them, so it's pretty important. I mentioned it there and no one else is experiencing any issues, so I'm assuming the problem lies with me. I figured you lot here are pretty savvy with this sort of stuff so would run it past you guys for some insight.

The problem is that every two or three clicks I make on these forums I get redirected to a website about Women's Health

.

Now I know many of you are going to make jokes about looking at porn and picking up something dodgy, so please let's skip that (although I was attempting to torrent a Japanese Music DVD you can't get in Europe earlier this week and if anything got in, it would likely be then

).

Anyway, I've scanned my computer repeatedly this weekend with 4 different malware scanners and they all turn up nothing. I have no extensions running on my browsers. My computer and all other web browsing is totally normal. The problem only affects three websites and only occurs in Safari and Chrome but not Firefox. If I connect to my router with my phone, I don't experience the problem there, but on the off-chance it's a DNS issue I changed my DNS to Google's 8.8.8.8, but the problem still persists.

I'm on a MacBook Pro running OS X Mavericks and it's fully updated. I've reset my browsers (cleared the cache), ran scanners as mentioned, manually went through all the directories relating to my browsers and removed anything that looks like it shouldn't be there but the problem is still there after all this...

It's getting pretty annoying and the thing that's confusing me is that it's only affecting three car forums and nothing else

.

Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully appreciated.

stevearcade2015-01-11 22:05:45

 

[frothmeister]

You got affecting right once out of two attempts Steveo.

This is why our country is going to ruin.

Sorry I haven't got a clue about macs or malware though

 

[stevearcade]

Just to update, the problem is not present at work, on a different wireless network, so I'm going to assume it's in some way related to my IP Address and/or DNS.

As before, any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[pobtastic]

Seems unlikely TBH, sounds more like there's XSS on the sites themselves. This is a result of people putting <script>alert('uh oh');</script> in posts which then get evaluated by the server (not your Mac) and redirect you somewhere else. It's probably coincidence you haven't noticed it at work, in order to avoid detection - there's a hint of randomness to when you get redirected (to lead you into thinking the issue is somewhere else). The biggest giveaway for this is that you don't see this behaviour wherever you go on the internet right? Just those few porn sites.

...Sorry CAR FORUMS.

Pobster

 

[stevearcade]

Nice one. Cheers man.