What's Been Going On

If you've been on Deviantart before, then you will know for a fact how much spam Deviantart gets sometimes. This can range from people sending you spam notes, chain letters, writing memes and bullshit in journal entries and what have you, and a load of other crap too.

But recently, some deviants have been getting dodgy looking comments on their profiles telling them to click a link that will go to another page - in a new window. The new window will open a webpage that looks just like Deviantart and will ask the user to log in with their account details.

And because the people of Deviantart are complete retards, they've done exactly that helping the spam to spread by letting the spambots run through their accounts, and then making up stories about how they've been hacked.


FOR OFFICIAL INFORMATION

There are some links provided by the Deviantart STAFF below. These links and only these links, (or other links provided in the future) are the ONLY PLACES you should get information from on this comment exploit.

NOT from some retard's journal telling you that their 'hacker - cough spambot' managed to magic up their bank details out of nowhere and wipe their account. Oh yes and telling you to come view their profile for more information, but refusing to link back to official links to back up their information.

(*Cough* Sound familiar? You've guessed it! Pageview / drama queen thrill alert! [link])


[link] $Moonbeam13 says "Comment Exploit - Protect Yourself!"

[link] The Deviantart Staff say "Deviation Comment Attack"



What Is The Comment Exploit

Recently several deviants have been finding strange MySpace like comments on their profiles, telling them to click on links that are obvious hoaxes.


The comments range from things such as:


Hey. this person wrote something about you in their blog.. CLICK HERE

LOL everyone should see this ... it's HILARIOUS just Click here

hey! check this out! I just saw who my Secret VALENTINE WAS !! it really works.. see who your VALENTINE is just CLICK HERE

and so forth.


The very first thing that you would not do is to click on any of these, for the simple reason that a mouseover would have shown you a suspicious looking link like da.login. whatever the rest of the url is. Some of them do look like they link to blogs such as blogspot and blogger, but the page is actually this same da.login whatever it is.

And in fact any suspicious looking comment you should report as spam, because the bottom line is many people fall for crap like that nowadays believing they know best when they don't. Don't just 'not report' something because it's someone on your friends or watcher's list. The chances are if it's not obvious like above, it's someone taking the piss to get more pageviews, and to make life harder for the staff.



Will I Get A Virus If I Click The Link?

No you will not get a virus. A load of power crazy deviants have decided to take advantage of this recent comment exploit to get pageviews, by telling everyone that it's a virus. It's an excuse for them to spam other people's accounts with horror stories of bank accounts being emptied when there aren't any bank details on Deviantart itself to grab, and to tell people to go to their profile for more information.

By clicking on their profile you will be earning them more pageviews, and by more people linking back to their journal entries (which surprise surprise they don't give on their actual comments) you will be getting them more traffic and causing the Deviantart staff even more problems.



Why Must I Change My Password Then?

The Deviantart staff can't control what happens under your account if you personally haven't done anything wrong. The only thing they could possibly do to stop the spam is to ban you, and obviously that's not appropriate if you're still using your account.

So therefore the only course of action they have is to tell everyone about this spam bot, and hope people decide to change their passwords.



If That Is True How Does It Work?

First of all, you will be taken to a page that looks just like the Deviantart login page. Because this page is fake, it is not an entire community or even a collection of webpages put together to make it look real. This one page was designed for collecting account information, and that's exactly what it has been doing.

People will mouse over the logo, see Deviantart.Com, not bother to check out the suspicious looking address and log in with their account information. The account username and password will be sent to the spam bot and it will log in through your account to spam. For this to happen, YOU have to put in YOUR account details YOURSELF.

Your account doesn't even get hacked, because firstly you're the one providing the details, and secondly your password doesn't even get changed by the spam bots. They merely use your account to spam. Webpages doing this through MSN messenger are common online and nobody falls for those - so why fall for it on Deviantart?

Apart from that, nothing else happens. Nothing malicious happens at all, and if you got a keylogger or a virus from this, Deviantart would be sure to tell you immediately and get experts involved on tracing and blocking the virus, or whatever it is they have to do. So correction lovey, I hardly think I'm going to be getting a deadly keylogger that'll take over the world anytime soon.


Why Do People Think It's A KeyLogger / Virus Then?

To get pageviews. Why else? (And yes I know that's usually an unacceptable excuse to say I don't like this deviant because they got it wrong and now I'm going to flame them. But check out some of the deviant's activity pages. They're spamming more than the spambots themselves.)

Nowhere did the Deviantart staff say it was a virus. They said it was a comment exploit, meaning people were being exploited through comments. That is not a virus, nor is it a worm or a key logger or any other form of malicious software. It is basically mary sue and drama queeners failing to understand the english language that a six year old could understand better, and taking advantage of it.

Simple.



So What Happens Now?

First of all, report comments that you see as spam and stop spreading the word about viruses. There is no virus. There never was one and there never will be.

Secondly if you see anyone spamming other people's profiles with rubbish about bank accounts being hacked, just stay out of it and report them. Spamming is against Deviantart rules - the staff said spread the word not spam each other's pages with false information and create horror stories.

It's a load of shit and you'll end up getting yourself banned for harassment if you start a flame war - even though you'd be right on telling people the truth.

Thirdly, help spread the correct information by either favouriting this news entry or similar news entries.