Well, today I was browsing the internet and I suddenly got redirected to a chine

Question

Well, today I was browsing the internet and I suddenly got redirected to a chinese hosted malware site and firefox started going crazy. I checked the url on virustotal with my phone and it found other reports where it was a malware hosting and browser redirect site. I turned off my router and modem and then turned my computer off and booted a live CD to wipe the drive with gparted.

I have everything backed up and can easily do that without a issue. I figured, why take a chance? I use Linux but browser exploits are still a problem and I don't always use noscript.

When something like that happens what else should I do on a linux computer? Is wiping the drive enough? Is rebooting my network devices a good idea as well or does that not matter? I also know about eternal storage devices being infected but I had nothing plugged in.

Explanation / Answer

Wiping your system and restoring from trusted media is definitely a good idea. At that point your system should be safe. However, I'd also suggest rotating your passwords on online services as well as using new passwords when you reinstall Linux. If you have ssh keys in use it wouldn't be a bad idea to rotate them as well. It may seem a little excessive but it's the only way to be sure you won't have repercussions from this later.

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