Action Required: All Subscriber Security Bulletin: PC Virus

November 9, 2011

MLSListings has received a handful of reports over the past two weeks of subscribers infected with a PC virus after going online or accessing the Pro.mlslistings.com or portal.mlslistings.com information sites via Internet Explorer.

MLSListings takes reports of this nature very seriously and have extensively investigated our network and websites to ensure that we are not a source of any viruses or malware. Our findings show that the virus did not originate with MLSListings; however we want to assure you that we are continuing to investigate this matter on an ongoing basis as a top priority. In fact, this malware outbreak is a common one found on the internet and we are taking swift action to investigate this further and we are providing guidance on how best to reduce its threat to your own computer systems.

The virus can pretend to be “Security Protection” or “System Restore” and comes up when it detects online activity. It redirects the Internet Explorer requests going to legitimate sites over to malware sites in the background so the user believes the original site they were attempting to visit was the source of the infection when the infection has already been resident on the user’s local system. It often hides all files and prompts for credit card information to restore the missing data. To date this malware only affects Internet Explorer maliciously and we have not received any issues related to FireFox, Chrome, or Safari browsers. More information on the virus can be found here: http://truxtertech.com/2011/10/fake-system-restore-is-a-virus/.

We recommend that all subscribers install and update the antivirus software on your PC or laptop. If your antivirus subscription has expired, there are a number of free solutions available online such as Avast and AVG. Also, we recommend that users install, update, and use MalwareBytes Anti-Malware to scan your system – it is useful at catching viruses that other solutions miss. It can be found at www.malwarebytes.org and is available for free download, scanning, and trial use for an extended period.

In closing, we want to reassure users that our MLS systems and applications are safe for use.

Regards,

James Harrison, RCE, CAE
President and CEO

MLSListings Inc