First Virus in 25 Years [modified]
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Going 25 years before getting a virus is hardly considered being "pwned"...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Going 25 years before getting a virus is hardly considered being "pwned"...
I mean the virus.:) Weiye Chen Life is hard, yet we are made of flesh...
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Craster wrote:
"They are the leader"
You will have several categories, not sure which he is using, but the "official" categories where several (not just one) are able to call themselves "leaders": 1) User response (responding to new viruses submitted by customers) 2) Market response (responding to new viruses caught by other companies and their customers) 3) Catching viruses in the wild (usually referred to as a sacrificial lamb, one or more computers are deliberately left open to catch new viruses) 4) Detection via heuristics 5) speed of dictionary/signature detection/reaction 6) quality of dictionary/signature detection/reaction (false vs. true usually, this is very relative) 7) detection of virus "behavior" (a program tried to .... do you wish to allow this action?) and new ones that companies make up. :) _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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You obviously don't have a teenager/wife using a PC at home :doh:.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
wife
Yes, her emails, are filter by outlook, the junk filter is high, she know open attachments from anybody she does not know. If you're careful then you can avoid AV, it's all down to common sense. Never send a human to do a machine's job Agent Smith
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
wife
Yes, her emails, are filter by outlook, the junk filter is high, she know open attachments from anybody she does not know. If you're careful then you can avoid AV, it's all down to common sense. Never send a human to do a machine's job Agent Smith
I've found common sense to be anything but common when it comes to normal users. I try to instill some amount of discretion in my family, but I'm not going to make them neurotic about it when I can do things up front. Ironically enough, our worst 'incident' occurred with a root kit / virus combination infection that happened while I was browsing msnbc; one of their ad servers was hijacked. In this case, I was browsing what I thought was a safe site. The adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" comes to mind. Given my experience with my 'incident', the units are more like µg and kiloton.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
You obviously don't have a teenager/wife using a PC at home :doh:.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Restricting admin rights doesn't seem to do much when it comes to preventing malware infections, unfortunately.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Restricting admin rights doesn't seem to do much when it comes to preventing malware infections, unfortunately.
Software Zen:
delete this;Stops a service being created, or the run key being written to, or the startup directory being written to (with a bit of tweaking of permissions). That's dealt with 100% of attempted attachment payloads to date in my experience. I keep IE patched, and my router keeps any worms away. Job done.
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Well, it finally happened. I've been using personal computers (in one form or another) for over 25 years, and yesterday I got my first computer virus. It happened while I was setting up a new DSL modem/router. I was playing with the settings, and pondering a page regarding static IP mapping when all of a sudden, the three non-server boxes (running Win2k Pro/SP4) all rebooted at the same time. When they came back up everything appeared normal except for one thing - the router was being hammered mercilessly by all three machines. I don't think any bad packets were getting out, but it sure did play hell with the speed of our internet connection. I immediately disabled the network connections on all three and just to be safe, completely shut down my server. After considering the possibilities, I assumed I had gotten a virus before I could lock the router down, so I enabled the network connection on my computer long enough to download AVG 7.1 and scanned my system. It found the Nachi.A virus and cleeaned it off my system, so I repeated the process (enable network connection, download, disable connection) on the other three machines (including the server). Sure enough it found Nachi.A on the other two boxes that had rebotted themselves, but strangely, not of the server box (running 2k3 server). I googled the virus, and found it reported in 2003 and that it exploited a RPC bug. I guess SP4 isn't patched enough to prevent the virus. This is the first time I've ever gotten a computer virus on ANY machine I was the admin on, and the first time I've ever installed A/V software on any machine I've ever owned. I wonder why it didn't infect the server...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John, Having a teenage son, I have had to deal with two major virus attacks; fortunately for me, since I run AV and firewall software on all my machines, it only impacted his personal PC and not my entire network. AVG Free is excellent, in the grand scheme of AV software; so good choice on that (IMHO) If you've not already read up on it, check Symantec's site has excellent virus information, including how it attacks, what it does to your machine, how to remove it, Etc. Even if you use a AV program to remove the virus, it doesn't hurt to read up on what hit you, so you know how it attacked ... After searching, it appears the virus that attacked you is listed under W32.Welchia.Worm[^] Good hunting.
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |Development Blogging|Viksoe.dk's Site -
I got nicked by the Michaelangelo virus in '91 or '92 when I was running my software company. The machine that got hit was dual booting QNX, so the removal process was somewhat exciting to say the least. However, I managed to get out of the scrape without losing data. Been running anti virus software ever since. Once bitten... And yeah, AVG rocks. I'd been paying Norton / Symantec for years, but they decided to boost their profits by outsourcing customer support to an extremely inept and apathetic organization, so I dumped them. Yep, that outsourcing stuff sure does save money. Who needs all those pesky customers? :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
Christopher Duncan wrote:
they decided to boost their profits by outsourcing customer support to an extremely inept and apathetic organization, so I dumped them. Yep, that outsourcing stuff sure does save money. Who needs all those pesky customers?
I'm considering doing the same to my car insurance company becuase they've out sourced their customer care line to an organisation that hires people that mumble and slur their words so I can't figure out what they are saying. It took several attempts to give them the licence plate of my new car. I googled them to find out if they'd off-shored and they had - which explains why I'm having difficulty understanding the person at the other end. And also explains why a number of things just didn't add up. Such as suggesting an invalid licence plate format, giving incorrect advice on the regulations surrounding vehicle excise duty (road tax), and asking what year the car was registered when that information is already encoded into the licence plate (i.e. the 3rd and 4th digit are 06 which means it was registerd in the first half of 2006).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." --Charles Babbage (1791-1871) My: Website | Blog
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
wife
Yes, her emails, are filter by outlook, the junk filter is high, she know open attachments from anybody she does not know. If you're careful then you can avoid AV, it's all down to common sense. Never send a human to do a machine's job Agent Smith
norm.net wrote:
she know open attachments from anybody she does not know
I wish my mom knew that. If you send here an email with
I am a virus.exeattached, she will open it! :sigh:Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico
Not much here: My CP Blog!
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Well, it finally happened. I've been using personal computers (in one form or another) for over 25 years, and yesterday I got my first computer virus. It happened while I was setting up a new DSL modem/router. I was playing with the settings, and pondering a page regarding static IP mapping when all of a sudden, the three non-server boxes (running Win2k Pro/SP4) all rebooted at the same time. When they came back up everything appeared normal except for one thing - the router was being hammered mercilessly by all three machines. I don't think any bad packets were getting out, but it sure did play hell with the speed of our internet connection. I immediately disabled the network connections on all three and just to be safe, completely shut down my server. After considering the possibilities, I assumed I had gotten a virus before I could lock the router down, so I enabled the network connection on my computer long enough to download AVG 7.1 and scanned my system. It found the Nachi.A virus and cleeaned it off my system, so I repeated the process (enable network connection, download, disable connection) on the other three machines (including the server). Sure enough it found Nachi.A on the other two boxes that had rebotted themselves, but strangely, not of the server box (running 2k3 server). I googled the virus, and found it reported in 2003 and that it exploited a RPC bug. I guess SP4 isn't patched enough to prevent the virus. This is the first time I've ever gotten a computer virus on ANY machine I was the admin on, and the first time I've ever installed A/V software on any machine I've ever owned. I wonder why it didn't infect the server...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
You obviously don't have a teenager/wife using a PC at home :doh:.
Software Zen:
delete this;I'm a teenager and I manage fine without AV :) I guess I'm tempting fate but I hate the slowdown... A (hardware) firewall has proved sufficient for me. Paul
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I'm a teenager and I manage fine without AV :) I guess I'm tempting fate but I hate the slowdown... A (hardware) firewall has proved sufficient for me. Paul
Paul van der Walt wrote:
A (hardware) firewall has proved sufficient for me.
Everything and nothing are always equally sufficient... until it is not. The only perfect protection, is never use your computer. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Gary Wheeler wrote:
wife
Yes, her emails, are filter by outlook, the junk filter is high, she know open attachments from anybody she does not know. If you're careful then you can avoid AV, it's all down to common sense. Never send a human to do a machine's job Agent Smith
that is completley not the case. I once had a popular hardware site try to infect me with an unpatched flaw in IE. My virus scanner caught it. The hardware site had been hacked and since the flaw was at the time unpatched, the only line of defense I had left was the AV. Fortunately norton caught it and I didn't lose any data. I could give you other scenarios but my point being, simple being careful isn't enough.
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I've never needed it before.
I'm with you on this one. I haven't gotten a virus on my home pc in ages. I've had more problems on my work pc with Norton on it.
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in a geriatric ward.
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Paul van der Walt wrote:
A (hardware) firewall has proved sufficient for me.
Everything and nothing are always equally sufficient... until it is not. The only perfect protection, is never use your computer. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
The only perfect protection, is never use your computer.
That is, of course, the best solution :-D
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
Everything and nothing are always equally sufficient... until it is not.
True, a firewall just seems to decrease the chance of infections... :) Paul