Super Terrible Virus Thread

[Mr. Wobbels 664]

So, over this weekend I've had to deal with a virus called Smart HDD. Detailed info on the virus itself here: http://www.bleepingc...emove-smart-hdd

 

What happened was, I was updating Firefox Nightly and this screen randomly pops up with a critical HDD failure warning. I thought "Hm. If my hard drive failed, then I wouldn't be able to access any of these files. This is probably a virus." Out of curiosity, I let it do its "scan" and it finally instructed me to buy their software. That's not suspicious or anything. The download link opened IE. Also not suspicious. MSE identified the virus, but when I restarted my computer after trying to isolate the virus, the program took over my computer almost completely. I couldn't boot into safe mode (it stopped after loading all of the system files) and Avast! couldn't find it when I ran it on my Ubuntu backup disk.

 

I finally went down to Staples and bought a copy of Windows 7 and a 1 year McAfee subscription (would've gone with NOD32, but I'm too lazy to get it online). Even the guys at the tech center were surprised by what happened. I finally finished setting up a clean Win7 install and I'm good to go now.

 

So tell me about your worst virus or computer issues.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Mr. Wobbels

[Vexx3 1,540]

I've managed to keep them away from my own computer (jinxed it right here). However, I once got one of those nasty porn spamming viruses onto my dad's work laptop. Needless to say, he wasn't happy.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Vex3d

[Jokuc 8,172]

I've had many viruses on my computer but I have been able to remove them most of the times.

btw, as a little extra tool I suggest Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware It's a good program to have.

[Mr. Wobbels 664]

I've had many viruses on my computer but I have been able to remove them most of the times.

btw, as a little extra tool I suggest Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware It's a good program to have.

 

Not a big fan of MWB. I prefer Microsoft Security Essentials, but I might as well try a paid program (McAfee).

[Dragonshy 2,305]

Wow, that's quite weird.

[Marcato 2,143]

Every single. Time my computer got screwed up. It was a virus to blame. Every time! And they come from downloading. Even downloading from trusted places sometimes cause troubles. I would reccomend finding a fast, effective internet security that blocks untrustworthy sites and scans the things you download effectively.

 

Steer clear of Norton Internet Security. Its actually pretty bad. e.e

[Mr. Wobbels 664]

Steer clear of Norton Internet Security. Its actually pretty bad. e.e

 

Duh. Norton sucks more than anything.

[Luurilka 325]

Idk if this is really a virus, but I downloaded Babylon once. (it said that it was a google chrome update)

That sucked, but I seemed to have gotten rid of it. Mostly.

It might still be lurking in my computer, slowing it down.

My computer has been acting extra slow as of late.

 

So, y'all say Norton sucks? hmm... maybe I should stop using Norton.

[Mr. Wobbels 664]

So, y'all say Norton sucks? hmm... maybe I should stop using Norton.

 

YES. Use AVG, Avast!, Panda Cloud, Malwarebytes, or Microsoft Security Essentials instead.

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

I got the Feld0 virus. It infects your computer with images and videos of supreme overlord telling us what to do on a daily basis.

[FLARE 951]

I use Common sense 2010, I suggest everyone in this thread to use it, ever since I installed it I haven't gotten any virus's...and no bloat slow down. Also I use NoScript on firefox.

[Vexx3 1,540]

YES. Use AVG, Avast!, Panda Cloud, Malwarebytes, or Microsoft Security Essentials instead.

 

I've never used Panda Cloud or MSE myself, but AVG, Avast!, and Malwarebytes I would definitely recommend. McAfee has some free program as well (I believe it's called McAfee Stinger), although I haven't tried it.

[Jadefire 2,796]

I've had a couple of occasions where a trojan avoided detection by impersonating my antivirus program. <..<

Edited April 1, 2012 by Jadefire

[Jokuc 8,172]

So, y'all say Norton sucks? hmm... maybe I should stop using Norton.

 

Yes, Avast is way better. Trust me, I know. I have compared Norton and Avast and there's no Doubt.

Also, Avast is free.

Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware is something you should get too.

Edited April 1, 2012 by The Chaos Maker

[joeyh3 153]

One thing that really helps protect you, even though very people actually do it, is use your computer with a regular user account, as opposed to an administrator account. User accounts only have control over their data, while admin accounts have control over the entire computer. If someone is logged in as an administrator, and a virus attempts to attack, it'll usually be able to take over the entire system (provided that the anti-malware software doesn't stop it), because that account would have the ability to modify all of the system files. If someone is logged in as a user, and a virus attacks, it usually won't do as much damage, as the account it's running under won't have access to write/modify any important files. The account would be damaged, but the computer would be fine.

 

Keyword is usually though - it is possible for a virus to take over an entire computer when just a user is logged in, and I've seen it happen, but it's not nearly as common. It still would be a great idea to use an anti-malware application. And always keep backups - no anti-malware program is perfect, so you always want to have regular backups just in case.

[Ron Jeremy 2,032]

Long time ago, I got a virus that would overtax my computer's memory, making it bluescreen. Nothing could get rid of it, it would close antivirus programs, and I ended up going all DELETE BUCKING EVERYTHING and wiping the drive and reinstalling. To this day I don't know where the virus came from. All I can guess is somebody in my house snuck into my room when I was gone and used my computer for "stuff". Ugh.

 

Other than that, I don't get viruses.

[Mr. Wobbels 664]

One thing that really helps protect you, even though very people actually do it, is use your computer with a regular user account, as opposed to an administrator account. User accounts only have control over their data, while admin accounts have control over the entire computer. If someone is logged in as an administrator, and a virus attempts to attack, it'll usually be able to take over the entire system (provided that the anti-malware software doesn't stop it), because that account would have the ability to modify all of the system files. If someone is logged in as a user, and a virus attacks, it usually won't do as much damage, as the account it's running under won't have access to write/modify any important files. The account would be damaged, but the computer would be fine.

 

Keyword is usually though - it is possible for a virus to take over an entire computer when just a user is logged in, and I've seen it happen, but it's not nearly as common. It still would be a great idea to use an anti-malware application. And always keep backups - no anti-malware program is perfect, so you always want to have regular backups just in case.

 

Never thought of that. That's a great idea.

 

I didn't have a backup, but I backed my important files into an external drive from my Ubuntu disk before I reinstalled Windows.

[JhonHipster 124]

im surprised my pc is still running, with all the mods and games i download and all the movies i pirate. only things Ive gotten are some ad ware that even though completely deleted are still here and the occasional smaller virus that AVG can handle.

[SPLinux 374]

I remember i used to suffer horrible viruses from vista:

 

i had to format several times losing ALL of my data, it sucked

i remember one time a virus once disabled all my USB ports.

 

but then i switched to Ubuntu GNU/Linux...

 

But in all seriousness viruses on windows can cause a lot of pain, my advice would probably be to steer clear of random websites, don't open weird looking email(especially with random garbage characters), and have good ant-virus software, if i was still on windows i would probably use Malwarebytes or Microsoft Security Essentials since i think they work just fine, and i am kinda a cheapo...

 

use your computer with a regular user account, as opposed to an administrator account. User accounts only have control over their data, while admin accounts have control over the entire computer. If someone is logged in as an administrator, and a virus attempts to attack, it'll usually be able to take over the entire system (provided that the anti-malware software doesn't stop it), because that account would have the ability to modify all of the system files. If someone is logged in as a user, and a virus attacks, it usually won't do as much damage, as the account it's running under won't have access to write/modify any important files. The account would be damaged, but the computer would be fine.

nice mentioning this, this is something UNIX/Linux systems have that make them more difficult for viruses attack, i have heard people doing this, sounds like a good idea.

 

 

 

 

Please don't yell at me, but honestly ever since i switched to a Linux based system i have almost completely forgotten about what it is like to deal with all of this stuff...

[joeyh3 153]

Never thought of that. That's a great idea.

 

I didn't have a backup, but I backed my important files into an external drive from my Ubuntu disk before I reinstalled Windows.

That's what we do at work - out of about 6500 users in our organization, there's maybe a dozen at most who have any form of administrator access on the computers. Virus infections are extremely rare (maybe once every two weeks, which is very good considering we have 2,800 computers), and when a computer does get infected, it usually takes less than five minutes to clean the computer as the user's account from which the virus is running under doesn't have the ability to modify anything important and infect the entire system.

 

And you really should keep backups - Ubuntu is only useful if you're locked out/prevented from accessing your files. You still have undesired deletions and modifications (both accidental and malicious), hardware failure, historical reference, etc.

 

nice mentioning this, this is something UNIX/Linux systems have that make them more difficult for viruses attack, i have heard people doing this, sounds like a good idea.

You talking about su/sudo? That is a nice feature of Linux. Windows does have several features similar to that (such as "Run As", which lets you run a program as an account other than the one that's logged in). Windows 7 was also a major improvement - now if an admin is logged in, they're treated as a user, and in order to do anything that requires modifying the system, they have to confirm it. It's not perfect, but I have seen far fewer Win7 infections than WinXP infections.

 

Please don't yell at me, but honestly ever since i switched to a Linux based system i have almost completely forgotten about what it is like to deal with all of this stuff...

And ever since I sold my Macbook (which had Linux installed on it longer than it had Mac OS installed), I've almost completely forgotten what it's like to deal with dependency resolution, compiling applications from source, getting QT-based programs to run in GNOME, chmod permissions, modifying conf files in a text editor, etc

 

Not trying to dis on Linux - I do love Linux (and have several web servers at work running it), but there's no such thing as a perfect operating system - no matter what you're using, there are drawbacks and advantages to each one.

Edited April 1, 2012 by joeyh3

[SPLinux 374]

That's what we do at work - out of about 6500 users in our organization, there's maybe a dozen at most who have any form of administrator access on the computers. Virus infections are extremely rare (maybe once every two weeks, which is very good considering we have 2,800 computers), and when a computer does get infected, it usually takes less than five minutes to clean the computer as the user's account from which the virus is running under doesn't have the ability to modify anything important and infect the entire system.

 

And you really should keep backups - Ubuntu is only useful if you're locked out/prevented from accessing your files. You still have undesired deletions and modifications (both accidental and malicious), hardware failure, historical reference, etc.

 

 

 

You talking about su/sudo? That is a nice feature of Linux. Windows does have several features similar to that (such as "Run As", which lets you run a program as an account other than the one that's logged in). Windows 7 was also a major improvement - now if an admin is logged in, they're treated as a user, and in order to do anything that requires modifying the system, they have to confirm it. It's not perfect, but I have seen far fewer Win7 infections than WinXP infections.

 

your on the right track, i was talking about how the root user is usually disabled by default and heavily frowned to use for general tasks, normal users in LINUX/UNIX systems have less privileges to sensitive system files which of course makes it diffucult for a virus to really do damage.

 

sudo is part of it though, since it allows normal users to get authenticated access to do high level tasks (like installing software), without really having to worry about damaging the system(like by entering a command they have no idea what it will do).

[Starswirl the Trixie 974]

I've only had one virus I had to deal with.

 

From what I remember, I must have installed an anti-virus program from a pop-up without thinking, or maybe it just downloaded from a webpage. Anyways, this overzealous program began to constantly run, making up fake statistics on how my computer is infected with 5000 viruses or something like that; it, of course, turned out that I only had one virus, the program itself. Any attempt to start any program, including an internet browser, would lead to a failure and a pop-up stating that any application I tried was unsafe. To fix the (fake) safety hazard, the pop-up said, I just have to pay $50 for their software.

 

After a while of asking on the internet (too tech-fail to figure it out myself), I solved the problem by using safe mode to restart, downloading anti-virus software, and blowing up the other damn anti-virus program (I mean the first one...).

[joeyh3 153]

your on the right track, i was talking about how the root user is usually disabled by default and heavily frowned to use for general tasks, normal users in LINUX/UNIX systems have less privileges to sensitive system files which of course makes it diffucult for a virus to really do damage.

 

sudo is part of it though, since it allows normal users to get authenticated access to do high level tasks (like installing software), without really having to worry about damaging the system(like by entering a command they have no idea what it will do).

 

That first part isn't quite true. In Ubuntu, the root account is not disabled per se, but instead the installer simply sets a random password for the account, and doesn't tell you what it is, thus preventing you from accessing it. This is something that only occurs in Ubuntu and a few other Linux variants. With most distributions, you simply set the root password while installing the OS, and if you want to use the root account, you just log in with that password.

 

It's actually kinda annoying really, as when you're working on servers, just about every command has to be ran under root. In Ubuntu, that leaves you to either type "sudo" in front of every single command, or you have to go through the process of changing the root account's password.... Then again, I prefer Cent for servers anyway, and Cent just lets you pick the root password during install, so it's not as bad.

[Fox 5,330]

One time I got a java update and my whole computer screwed up. I had to return it to it's factory settings, because I couldn't do anything after that dumb update that screwed up my computer. >

[SPLinux 374]

That first part isn't quite true. In Ubuntu, the root account is not disabled per se, but instead the installer simply sets a random password for the account, and doesn't tell you what it is, thus preventing you from accessing it. This is something that only occurs in Ubuntu and a few other Linux variants. With most distributions, you simply set the root password while installing the OS, and if you want to use the root account, you just log in with that password.

 

It's actually kinda annoying really, as when you're working on servers, just about every command has to be ran under root. In Ubuntu, that leaves you to either type "sudo" in front of every single command, or you have to go through the process of changing the root account's password.... Then again, I prefer Cent for servers anyway, and Cent just lets you pick the root password during install, so it's not as bad.

 

Your right, however in Ubuntu its disabled in a way that the password is set to something that isn't equal to any character/number combination possible, not necessarily a random password, kinda like the password is empty. still most Linux variants discourage the use of root for any general use (except for server/adminstation obviously) because its dangerous. in most distro's other than Ubuntu where root is there from the start, its generally not listed in the display manager ,since being logged in as root in a X session is considered extremely dangerous, and completely unnecessary.