MSSE alert pop-up when checking time.gov this morning

[blue skies]

I clicked on the time.gov website this morning to check my local time which I guess uses a Java application. It's a site I have bookmarked and check occasionally while setting my clocks which never seem to keep good time.

I immediately had a pop-up I've never seen before warning me of a serious computer risk. At first I was suspicious whether it really was a warning from MSE (since I've never seen it before) or just one of those fake windows you get with infected websites asking you to click on it. It did look like it could be from MSE though, so I clicked on more information and the window had the MSE icon on it. It listed Java (with some letters and/or numbers - I didn't take a screen cap) and said it was suspended and asked whether or not I wanted to remove it.

I just updated Java yesterday, so perhaps that is the cause of the warning? Or could it just be that MSE thought the Java run clock on the time.gov website was a threat when it wasn't?

When I closed the time.gov tab, the warning disappeared. I don't know much about Java and never had a warning before from MSE. Since the warning box disappeared before I clicked to remove the "threat", does that mean the issue is resolved? Or is there more I need to do?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[kegobeer]

I just went to time.gov and didn't get a warning, but the site looks to be different now. They have a flash widget showing the time now, due to the increased traffic after the switch to standard time. It was probably something on their website that caused the MSE dialog to pop up.

 

[blue skies]

Thanks for checking Kegobeer. (Great name!) I wonder what caused the pop-up?

I get nervous when I get those pop-ups to update Java and I have to click to allow it access to change things on my computer. I always have this little niggling fear that it could be a virus and I'm giving it access to my computer.

 

[marsmimar]

I agree with kegobeer that the unusually high traffic to the website and the resulting switch to a flash widget probably resulted in that false positive you received. Adobe Flash is like a malware magnet. When MSE detected a change to the website, and that change involved a previously NOT detected flash widget, you and others probably got the warning. Once it was determined there was no threat, no more warnings. Which probably shows that MSE was working as designed, alerting folks to a possible threat and erring on the side of caution.

 

[blue skies]

Thanks Marsmaimar!

This may be a very stupid question, but is Adobe Flash a java application?