I Caught A Bug!!

ceridwen

:eek:
Trundling round surfing yesterday and caught a bug - you can tell I'm a newbie! - my security program (Windows Live Onecare) informed me I had caught a Trojan and did I want it cleaned. You bet! Panicstations and push "yes". It did its thing springcleaning and I have just run a full scan - duly been told again my status is good. Phew!

Bit concerned - being new to all this as we know - as to whether my security program informed me promptly it had caught a cold. Presume these programs do tell one on the spot - so I knew as soon as I had a problem. Didnt take a note of what particular trojan it told me it had just caught. Can anyone tell me how prompt Windows Live Onecare is at alerting users that they have a problem? (Browntoa - are you on line? - and anyone else who can enlighten me on this - comments gratefully received).

(Where do these people get off who plant these things? Gather that trojans are usually hoping to steal ones banking details - no go on me then - as I dont bank online!). In my book - we all do our bit to help each other out when we can with this stuff and dont go in for all that sort of thing! What goes round comes round and all that! People help you out - and then, when its your turn to be the one who knows a bit more, then you turn round and do your bit to help out. Such is life!

Browntoa

onecare is not the best at detecting things to tell the truth

do a double check with Housecall

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

free online scanner, see if it throws up anything...let me know either way

ceridwen

:A
Thanks v. much browntoa. V. prompt bit of help again! I went onto the housecall site you recommended. Had a bit of a glitch on Quick Select page where there were options to 1. Scan complete computer or 2. Scan individual selected folders. A Windows Internet explorer box came up stating "An error occurred while trying to transfer data from internet. Do you want Trend Micro Housecall to try resending". I pushed OK several times and then got rid of that box and think I must have just clicked on the "scan complete computer" bit. It sat there a bit and I wondered what was happening - but when I had gone to and fro a bit a page came up stating it had done a complete scan and clean and didnt find any potential threats. So looks like its done its thing - and Windows had done its thing okay. So I seem to be sorted - thanks very much again.

I shall be glad when Virgin PCGuard is available to me - at present its still not on the line for Virgin broadband users with Vista - gather from Virgins website that we come in from the cold so to say and get our PCGuard too in July. So - at that point - I guess my easiest bet will be to go for that and pay the £3 per month extra bit to deal with spyware too - and I can just leave it all in their hands then.!

Thanks again.

Browntoa

onecare does work, you see it on this occasion, it's just in the past it has performed badly

maybe it's getting better !!

ceridwen

ps to browntoa - guess that means I can stop fretting about having, by coincidence, made my first internet purchase (as in via a debit card) at some point yesterday (ie the day the bug turned up)??!

Browntoa

yes, you'll be fine

ceridwen

Thanks again Browntoa - you're a star.:T

chris57_2

Get spybot as well if you dont already have it. Its free and damn good at getting rid of unwanted spyware/adware:-
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/

pchelpman

ceridwen ... .the tool chris57 mentions is good and desirable BUT you can't rely on just one thing. There's no silver bullet to protect you from every piece of nasty programming out there.

You have a reasonably good program in One Care but you need a "layered" approach ... antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware and so on. All are available FREE if One Care doesn't have them.

As you are new to all this I recommend you take some time out to read three articles (see links at end of this post). They will guide you through many aspects of basic computer security and they have all the links to the free downloads. There is a little duplication/crossover but all the articles are well worth reading.

By the way .... don't worry that this stuff is free. I use it all as do many people here. Also the authors of these articles are highly qualified and respected advisors. They wouldn't suggest anything that wasn't safe.


Best wishes.



http://www.castlecops.com/t7736-So_how_did_I_get_infected_in_the_first_place.html

http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/Protect_Your_PC/Avoid_Web_Browser_Hijackers.html

http://www.techsupportforum.com/security-center/general-computer-security/115548-pc-safety-security-what-do-i-need.html

johnnytee

Browntoa wrote: »

onecare is not the best at detecting things to tell the truth

do a double check with Housecall

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

free online scanner, see if it throws up anything...let me know either way

Just given housecall a spin. It failed to find anything on my system. I then ran Spybot S&D. It found sixteen assorted problems.

Anyone use housecall on a regular basis ad find it effective?

pchelpman

I scan with Housecall, Panda Activescan, Spybot and a bunch of other stuff too.

It's usually true to say one program will find stuff another program misses.

IMO the best two general "all rounders" for finding and fixing malware are Superantispyware and AVG Anti Spyware. Respective links.....

http://www.superantispyware.com/

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/20/lng/us/tpl/v5

Both have free very effective versions but even these won't find everything.


PCH