URL:Mal Threat Pop-Up

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I am using the latest version of Firefox and the latest version of Avast.

I wanted to go to the http://www.pearlevision.ca website at 1am Pacific on Saturday but an Avast pop-up stated ‘Threat Blocked: We’ve safely aborted connection at www.discountprescriptioneyewear.com because it was infected with URL:Mal.’

I ran a full virus scan but nothing was detected and I checked the Virus Vault but nothing was there either.

  1. Why would another website attempt to load instead of the one that I wanted?

  2. What is the URL:Mal Threat?

  3. Is it safe to ‘Dismiss’ it from the Notifications list?

  4. Since the connection was aborted, does that mean that no virus is on my system?

2

  1. Sites can (and do) get hacked, they can also have ads delivered by 3rd party ad servers, either of these could result in redirection to a 3rd party site considered malicious.

  2. It is a site (URL) or IP address considered malicious/suspect.

  3. Yes, as the Web Shield has blocked access to the site.

  4. Yes, the Web Shield aborted the connection so nothing was saved to your system. Hence the fact there was nothing in the virus chest and a scan found nothing.

3

DavidR:

  1. Is it always wise to run a manual full virus scan, like I did, after an Avast pop-up of this nature is displayed or is it unnecessary?

  2. Should I avoid visiting the original website or was it a one-off unlikely to produce another URL:Mal pop-up?

4
  1. If web-shield blocked it, nope.
  2. Looks clean to me (now), see…
    https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/www.pearlevision.ca/
    https://zulu.zscaler.com/submission/3763fe0a-319a-4eff-960c-c9b96a787996
    https://www.virustotal.com/#/url/303bb29ecf23ab9f5219a495976b49cc961f81a534b5206321107b538db1a58a/detection
5

1.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software#Real-time_protection
http://ask-leo.com/is_realtime_antimalware_scanning_really_needed.html
2.) URL:Mal = Blacklisted site

[EDIT:] Order of answers was different from person needing help.

6

Asyn:

Are you saying that running a manual full virus scan, like I did, after an Avast pop-up of this nature is displayed is overkill since Web-Shield blocked it or can a full virus scan still be run afterwards for peace of mind?

7
or can a full virus scan still be run afterwards for peace of mind?
Of course, it is your computer so you do as you like ....
8
  1. Yep.
  2. Sure, see reply from Pondus above.
9

Thanks Asyn.

10

You’re welcome.