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POWDERINC CAUTION

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Zonie

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Griz44Mag posted this in the Non-Muzzleloading area of the forum.
Because that area is only open to people who have paid for our "Supporter" membership, many of you probably can't read what is posted there.
I think this information might be very important to our members so I am going to post some of his comments here.

Twice today I opened POWDERINC to check prices on OE black powder.
Twice my virus scanner lit up and screamed about a Malware being sent by that website.
Both were caught, both were cleaned.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!
Make sure you are using a reputable Internet security software package.
ESET has flagged it.
I will be locking out that particular website.
Hopefully they are dealing with the issue. I will try again in the next few days.

Followup.
Just got a text from my hunting buddy.
He uses the same software I use.
He logged into POWDERINC and got the same scanner hit. He sent me a text to warn me.

With two different people getting the same thing from a web site it very likely that they didn't pick up the bug unknowingly from some other place so if you don't have a very good computer security program that can detect Malware, it would be best not to go to that site.

If anyone who does have good computer protection wants to go there, let us know what happens. If the site tried to contaminate your computer or if it didn't, let us know.
Also, let us know what your using to access the web site. Computer? Smart Phone? Tablet? It might make a difference in what happens.
 
For the record, I just did a web search for "powderinc" + malware. Google only found 4 things with this combination which is pretty amazing when almost anything you put into Google search comes up with half a million hits.

The things the Google search did find was the post on our forum and three which were dated in 2017, 2011 and some date earlier.

Duckduck.go didn't find anything except for the posts Google found.

If there was a real problem, I would expect to see at least 10 Google or Duckduckgo hits with a 2020 date on them.
 
I bought powder from them directly while traveling through the area about 6 years ago. Nice people to work with, but I suspect if they have a computer virus issue they may not be aware of it.
 
I have dealt with them several times with great results. Just went to their website (using Firefox) and I don't see anything unusual. But then my (work) desktop may be screening kooties. I wonder if they are using some app that looks for your location? That may be a "danger" depending on your brower and settings.

My browser at work won't allow me to open any website hosted overseas. I'm surprised at some that are.
 
I was in the Powder Inc website not long before Griz made his first post. My personal laptop did not pick anything up and all looked normal. After I saw the post, I ran an offline "deep malware/virus" scrubber on my laptop and it found nothing at all. No problem files. Not sure if there was an issue or not, but if there was, it didn't affect me.
 
I run a Norton Security program and it blocked an ‘intrusion attempt’ when I opened Powder Inc’s web page. Sent Powder Inc a heads up email.

And anyone blissfully cruising the internet without protection had better suit up before viruses and other bad things attack their computer. Guessing some of the ‘don’t see anything unusual’ and/or ‘all looked normal’ crowd may have had an uninvited successful ‘intrusion attempt’ made on their hardware.

upload_2020-1-20_15-16-27.jpeg
 
Had a couple of emails back and forth with folks at Powder Inc, and they were trying to track down the source of the issue, which apparently finally got resolved late this afternoon.

Did a little of my own research and discovered it was a 'formjacking' type attack. Nothing to fear or see here as it just "malicious JavaScript code that has been installed by the cyberthieves that can collect information such as payment card details, home and business addresses, phone numbers and more".........
 
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