This is also in the ad rotation for Yahoo mail. My antivirus (Nod32) has stopped it twice in the last week. Click on anywhere on the dialog box (including the X) and it attempts to do things to your machine.

Why on earth mention PHP? It hasn't got anything to do with it, next you'll be saying it was PHP 4.2 on Apache 1.3 on Windows 2000 running on a Dell machine with an AMD processor and Western Digital disk, which is hosted in a yellow room in Liverpool. Ooh, hang on a minutes I see your point now, it's the scousers again......

I presumed that I had just typed the URL wrongly or something. I did get a malicious javascript detected as a virus on my Vista box (detected by AVG) while it uploaded a page that "scanned my system for security" or something transparently pish like that.

The thing is I also saw it on my Girlfriend's Mac, with a page that made it look like it was Mac specific malware that was being searched for so I killed the browser (firefox). The problem is that having no AV or anti-spyware installed on the Mac, I have no way of knowing if anything dodgy was run or is still running on it. Anyone got any suggestions? Preferably ones that don't involve shelling out actual money...

Most, if not all banners are a link to a URL. The ad server serves the required code for the banner but might not be particularly discriminating in what it serves, which could lead to embedded javascript issuing pop-up events (I'm not casting aspersions on ITV.com's system here, just looking at potential scenarios). Alternatively, the URL in the banner link could look OK but could redirect to a malware pop-up when you click on it.

Saying that NoScript works is like saying that turning the computer off works. It does technically work, but surely it pans out like this instead:- Person with NoScript visits itv.com and is safe. Considers itv.com to be a safe, trusted site. Sees that video is present and wants to see it so starts enabling scripts on the site and embedded sites until they get the desired functionality (even if temporarily). However all they see is server names with no idea what they do. At some point they enable the servers which allows the malware to come through.

I don't understand how someone is supposed to work out what constitutes a trusted site and an untrusted site in the context of malware which is running from an otherwise clean and trusted site such as itv.com. The bottom line is if you don't trust anything, a lot of perfectly good sites don't work. if you do trust parts of those sites, you risk being hit by this kind of malware.

I use NoScript but I don't see how it can protect against this. It does protect against a lot of other stuff and that's why I use it and support it.

Advertising policy varies from site to site: sites could leave it to third parties like Doubleclick or run their own solutions. Depending on volumes ads could be monitored or just fed into the system as long as someone has paid for them. One would hope that there was some nominal screening for malware but in the end it's all income and economies of scale and I would guess that potentially malicious ads aren't spotted until they are served. In the meantime, Firefox + AdblockPlus + NoScript are your friends.

That's true, NoScript just blocks javascript unless you allow it. As a model that works for me, as I would prefer to see what is running on a page before I allow it. That's especially the case in some video sites like Metacafe and Linkit, which have embedded scripts from something like half a dozen other sites on the page in some instances, but you can still view the video just by allowing the local domain, essential if you like watching cats falling off tables.

ABP is more powerful where ads are concerned as it will show the scripts attached to the ads that are blocked. I pressed the ABP button on this page and it flags scripts and shows the code, which in the case of Doubleclick ads, runs to a couple of thousand characters, which, if you wore a tinfoil hat, could mean anything, which is why the combination is a good solution as far as I'm concerned.

I complained to EA games about the pop-up, and they said eventually that "more time is required for investigation".

I think my TV must have caught this pop-up virus too. Each time I watch Corrie I get some junk messages on screen telling me to text a number to catch-up with ITV programmes, or to visit the website or to watch The Bill coming next.

Is there anything I can do to cleanse my CRT of this crap?