Viruses - Do you get them and why?

sleep2much

I've had "viruses" mainly back door trojans, or in the old days of dial up all types of stuff :whistle:, the main culprit was lack of knowledge, downloading things like bearshare and the like opened my system to all kinds of re-directors and god knows what, a few years down the road I may still get the odd trojan, but my anti-virus gets them first, ad-aware cleans out the tracking cookies.
In the days when a 200mhz cpu was something to boast about, ant-virus could really slow down your system, todays multiple ghz cpu's don't even notice av's running.

robt_2

sleep2much wrote: »

I've had "viruses" mainly back door trojans, or in the old days of dial up all types of stuff :whistle:, the main culprit was lack of knowledge, downloading things like bearshare and the like opened my system to all kinds of re-directors and god knows what, a few years down the road I may still get the odd trojan, but my anti-virus gets them first, ad-aware cleans out the tracking cookies.
In the days when a 200mhz cpu was something to boast about, ant-virus could really slow down your system, todays multiple ghz cpu's don't even notice av's running.

Out of curiosity, why do you still 'get the odd trojan' (even though your AV gets them)?

marleyboy

Ive been pretty Virus free until recently, having an endless array of various Vscans and Firewalls running, My system I thought was practically inaccessable to any gremlins. However it only took one file, which none of my recent and updated scanning software could detect. Worse, this virus managed to completely disable my Vscan's, as well as corrupting System Restore and infecting the Safe Mode.

Its taken me nearly 3 weeks to get my system back on the road, The harsh lesson I have learned from this is to never assume you are completely protected, as there is always someone out there creating far more elaborate and well hidden Virus's, constantly, a sure reason as to why any Vscan or Firewall software has to be regularly updated.

A system that says "100% virus free", doesnt mean it IS, it only implies that as far as the scanning software knows, its 100% clean. I class myself as quite knowledgeable when it comes to computers, so would think, a virus may get passed my security, but ultimatley it has to get passed me, which uintil recently I thought was quite impossible. It only takes one slight lapse, to completely infest a pc, regardless of what is protecting it. Assume a pc is only 50% protected.

sleep2much

robt wrote: »

Out of curiosity, why do you still 'get the odd trojan' (even though your AV gets them)?

I've heard others say that software and movies obtained via certain sites online may not be 100% legit;) . I guess it' the risk they take downloading them.

wakandem

I stick to the free stuff and have not had issues, but then as the thread suggests a certain amount of care when online can be most effective. Most viruses I see come on to pc's that teenagers have been using, either looking for !!!!!! but also quite innocently looking for console/game info & cheats and the like (msn)
Loads of pc's are infected by people clicking a flashy advert that claims to check the pc or quite often they know the program they want, search google for it and go to the first site shown for download.
They don't think to check the download source.

With the reports that alot of malware now hides on regular sites everyone uses alot, & can spread from 0000's of clicks before the owners of the site realise there is a problem & fix it, it is starting to need more than just clever surfing to stay safe. Owners of the really big organisations arn't exactly going to publisise a comprimised part of their web presence unless forced, so how often it happens is hard to quantify.

All the av progs will have short comings under certain attacks & life can get really boring when you realise a test you have done online throws up loads of false positives , and since the installed av didn't find them you panik until it is worked out that they must be false positives but even then you can not be really be sure & scan the pc to destruction just to be doubly sure, we have all been there at some stage.

Any one with smitfraud installed have probably had avg identify it as a virus - 'false positive'.

weegie.geek

sleep2much wrote: »

I've heard others say that software and movies obtained via certain sites online may not be 100% legit;) . I guess it' the risk they take downloading them.

Software perhaps, but if you've downloaded a movie, but the actual file is an executable of sorts, as opposed to a media file, shouldn't they be somewhat suspicious?

albertross_2

picked 2 up from links in this very forum (they were detected by AV), one was posted intentionally, and the other, the op didn't know his site was infected ( a hosting company problem). AV software plays catchup, so if you get a rootkit, you may never know, especially with mbr infections.

spud17

Only been around computers a couple of years, picked up js-downloader(?) virus a few months ago when I clicked on a Google link for some hard drive info.
AVG immediately caught it and quarantined it.

D.K.

Robt, I said I was expecting photos from this sender. Not unreasonable therefore to click on an attachment from them when you are expecting it.
As Shazamaca, Alfonso helped me check things and I'm very grateful for that, nothing else has ever caught me out...good luck Shazamaca

BillScarab

Well according to my AV software I've not had any viruses for a long time, I can't actually remember when the last one was or what it was. I do remember it was a file I downloaded and scanned before opening and it was infected so I got rid of it sharpish. I'm surprised I've not seen anything more recently as I do use P2P software on occasion and I'm an inveterate stumbler.

BTW robt 15 years in computers makes me feel very old. When I started it was called DP and we never got viruses using punched cards.

Surpised you got hit so quick behind a firewall Superscraper.