PC Virus WAR!!!!

[Siegfried]

4 of the PC's in the household became infected over the last days and 2 died

As a rule I use only legal software plus each of the PC's in the house has a anti virus program installed. The anti virus software vary from AVG, Avira and Kaspersky. The latter was a paid version. 1 pc with AVG only just survived plus on with Kaspersky. The Avira pc died plus the a pc with Kaspersky.

The PC's most effected were one used with free music downloads, MSN plus all social related stuff and another not so extremely exposed as the 1st but also with a lot of access to Facebook.

Also interesting when fighting these virusses I found that files from Adobe Flash, Quicktime PLUS all the search engine tool bard were heavily proned to virus attacks. Seems like all files sending back info to a server (marketing feedback) were used as vehicles. Some one can fight back but other just block so hard that its impossible to access or to kill them. Best I could do was to rename these files and to move them to another directory hoping that who talks to them cannot in the future. The other alternative is completely reformatting and reloading windows. As is I had to do three pc's in the last week.

So guys pls accept my apology when things go a bit slow the next few days....

Best

Siegfried

[swandy]

Siegfried,
Sorry to hear about your problems - really sucks.
I have been using Avast Antivirus for several years and never had any problems. Their "home edition" is free with registration - they make their big bucks on their commercial products - and it works very painlessly in the background. Does not slow down my computer (currently running XP Pro until Thursday when I will be trying out Windows 7) or use as much system resources as Norton or Symantec did.
Try it: http://www.avast.com/
Steve

[Simon.fairclough]

I use AVG free and have for several years it works great and doesn't seem to use much RAM.
I do keep an old laptop for anything I download like software and run AVG on it check for nasties before I transfer to my laptop.
Sorry you have had such a bad time.

[Siegfried]

I used AVG for years and one of the pc's had avg installed. It seems the attack was just more severe than normal this time. Remember while back the forum was also down....

I do not want to scare you guys but have you noticed the number of updates Windows had in the last days....never been that much.

My advice is to keep on the safe side as much as possible

Siegfried

[geckophoto]

Hi Siegfried,

Did you tried to run Hitman pro or spybot already?

Running Hitman pro is an excellent way to get rid of all kind of nasty infections. Plese give it a try, you can download it for free, version 3.5 at www.hitmanpro.nl or www.surfright.nl


Hope this will solve your problems.


Best regards,


Rob

[Siegfried]

Hello Rob

Thnks a million for your advice. In addition to Kaspersky I installed and run Hitman. My PC is now clean and I can start spending time on stuff I enjoy...

Best

Siegfried

[geckophoto]

Hi Siegfried,

I am so very pleased to hear that i was able to contribute in solving your PC trouble!
This is really the highlight of my day!

Best regards,


Rob

[ardo]

Hi all
Here is my 0.02$
I am teaching in a college in engineering for over 30 years this year, an security was always and is still an issue. But thanks to a few tools, I can keep up running my system for over a year without re-installing the software or the O/S (win xp pro sp3). The tools I use are the followings.

1- Zonealarm pro internet suite version 9.1.008.000 (Sonicwall anti-fraud and junk email)
2- registry mechanics
3- Advanced System Optimizer (29.95$) (ASO)
4- Network magic (19.95$)

I have so many softwares installed that its practically a miracle that everything run so smoothly. I have so many cads programs installed to name a few (autocad, inventor, mechanical desktop, solid-edge, solidworks,etc.), and many programs such as PSE7, Corel paint shop X2, Lightroom v2.4, Corel Draw X4, Corel Photo Paint, Ptlens, Corel Painter Photo essentials, 123_di_6.0, spyder elite 3.0, firefox, internet explorer 8, windows professionnal office suite, Nero v9, realplayer, Frontcam, etc. But NONE OF THEM is illegal softwares. So every updates is installed when available, and no junk such as rootkits are trying to contaminate my system.

I am still running an old P4 3.0 mhz 2 gigs ram, with an ATI Firegl T2 128 megs ram, (dedicated for cad applications)and even on large cad assemblies the system respond in a very acceptable way. ASO is a very important software to clean my computer of bad links and optimize my system memory, I am sure many of you have similar results with other software packages, but if you don't i recommand you do something about it. I do a scan everyday during night time after bed sleep. The scan procedures are the followings

1- deep scan every night
2- ultra deep scan once a week
3- rootkits scan once a month.

Have a good day

Luc

[Siegfried]

Hi Luc

Thanks for the info. Its of great help for all I believe. I have also started a more regular program of scanning the PC's in the household, since the problems I had.

I always thought having the anitvirus program in the background is OK. I even disabled the scans because it slows down the PC...on older PCs it can be a hassle...

Pls give a little more info about the Netwok Magic software you use. Is it saver to not share files?

Best

Siegfried

[ardo]

Hi Siegfried
I feel totally safe to use Cisco Network Magic, because Cisco is considered to be one if not the world leader in networking. As far as sharing printers or files, it is used in my personnal network. Also, it can reconnect your network if faulty events occurs. For more info, you can log at

http://www1.purenetworks.com/product/tour/?k=1343455283&lcid=3084&ad=-1&ag=b9a3df90f2d0929a&g=345be03388de6c02%252Cd791c28c96ba6978&b=pure&ulcid=3084&as=1&a=5.5.9195.0&bt=shp&it=upgrade&pn=nm&dc=Pure2.Zone&dt=RTL&am=&ct=cisco

By the way, the new ASO V 3 (29.95$) software seems to be able to replace completely my registry mechanics software. Don't also forget that you share your printers or files through your router, that should be setup to a good level of encryption such as WPA or WPA2. Do not use WEP even in 128 bytes encryption because , it can be decrypted in a few minutes. Do not forget to use a router password that contains alphanumeric and numbers, avoiding any names or objects such as dog12934, a better password would be something meaningless such as 2a3feFrt51. Even if you use wpa2 encryption, if your router password is not strong someone will get to your router and change or even read your encryption.


best

Luc