| 5/12/2014 12:55:10 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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stricklysmitten
Penns Grove, NJ
34, joined Oct. 2013
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Cryptolocker is a nasty no holds barred virus. Thank Goodness we haven't experienced it at work. However, I've heard thru the grapevine that one of our partner companys got hit and ended up paying the ransom. I would think that this could be mitigated by having reliable frequent backups.
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| 5/13/2014 11:15:25 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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aha2
Z_rich
Switzerland
52, joined Jan. 2010
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Back on Windows 98 I've lost ALL data by one of the first low level viruses. I even had to wait some days for a new format tool from Dell.
Yes, that's when I discovered Suse Linux.
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| 5/14/2014 3:12:46 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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deeptangoflyfre
San Diego, CA
49, joined Jan. 2014
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I remember when the Chernobyl Virus came out and became prevalent pretty quickly. Also there was a variant of the Jerusalem that was a total pain to deal with. That one spread via executable files when people were using floppy disks bringing them into companies, houses, etc. I think that one was when companies started having policies about bringing in outside disks.
There were stacks of disks that would say "SAFE or CHECKED or NOT GOOD" in almost every office.
What was the one that would hijack outlook express and IE, sending copies of your most frequently accessed websites to random contacts. Was that a variant of Melissa?
The driver by downloaders sucked because there was usually multiple viruses, malware, spyware on one system. Supposedly, there was a sophisticated package management system that would raw write to the hard disk a package of viruses, spyware, toolbars, malware, etc. Then it would polymorph itself into harder to detect code that would contain the instructions to raw read the code at a later time. The antivirus programs algorithms would skip past these because the code would change depending on random factors and the algorithms the av software used wasn't smart enough to figure direct / indirect addresses and tabled addresses.
I'm probably explaining that wrong or combining multiple viruses into one. I apologize if I am.
When you would do house calls and find Anna K. (can't remember her spelling) virus, you could assume the person had a prolific porn collection. These computers were gross to work on considering they probably jerked it while on the computer then tried to fix it themselves downloading even more viruses that were masquerading as tools to remove the virus. The client would hover over you, watching your every move. Usually they would ask you to come in for something different like "Word does not print right" or "System running slow but can bring computer in. Please fix it here". When a popup would peddle "Viagra" or "PC Power Fix" and the client would say "thats something else" you knew you were in trouble. Bringing up anything that remotely looked like a file explorer would make the client extremely uncomfortable and barrage you with questions asking "do you really need this" or "what are you doing".
The best solution I found for viruses (at the time) was to remove the hard drive and put it in as a external drive on a linux system. I could backup the data onto another hard drive. Then run various scans and pull up the registry, autoruns to try to make sense about what was running. A lot of people were not comfortable with this solution and wanted me to work on it in front of them without opening the computer up. The fact that they were withholding information made them uncomfortable about the world. After several hours at the house, I would feel like a hostage.
I would hope they would give in and say "Just take it." more than likely they would say "erase everything and lets start from scratch" instead. They thought their family was clueless about their late night computer usage. There was a good chance that their kids were not only had a clue, but would retrace the history visiting all of the sites.
Security Focus, did a report on this phenomena. They had a team up in Calgary that would reply to every email in real time /24 hours a day. At one time, they were given assignments and research which included sampling a million different internet histories of computers that had extensive porn use (like 25%? or more of the www usage was in regards to porn) & virus/malware/etc... The log files were all anonymous but they did interview people who were infected that volunteered. Since dates & times were recorded, and images were cached, they could determine wait time (dl time) versus action time (viewing or interacting on a page). They came to the conclusion that the children would spend an equivalent amount of action time but they would sometimes notice different things on the page or the page was dynamically created and saw it was the second visit so it had a different virus package / campaign ready for download. Once downloaded, it would be excecuted; the antivirus was already defeated so there wasn't anything to identify the virus payload and it would run free.
A lot of these packages had spyware/malware that would pay the package holder (the downloading / installing application) depending on the value of the info. If it was just a nuisance popup, it would be minimum. If it was a credit card sniffer, zombie, etc. they would get more.
These were the worst (imo) because you were working under pressure, handicapped, random attempts to repair were done previously by client leaving system unstable, didn't have a clean system to use. The scans were painful and tedious. So long and you would have to do them to several times. I would be tempted to leave when running the final one and I'd ask them not to use the computer until it finishes. I would include instructions for running spybot s&d after too. Rarely would they do this. When I got up and left, someone would get on the computer, plug the router back in and get crazy.
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| 5/15/2014 9:45:35 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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aha2
Z_rich
Switzerland
52, joined Jan. 2010
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PS: I forgot to mention that since 98 I only use Linux for online stuff, without one single problem.-
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| 5/20/2014 5:24:01 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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deeptangoflyfre
San Diego, CA
49, joined Jan. 2014
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Linux is the bomb
what flavor do you use?
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| 5/26/2014 1:48:44 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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aha2
Z_rich
Switzerland
52, joined Jan. 2010
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I'm happy with Ubuntu. Years back I have used previously Suse and Mandrake.
http://distrowatch.com/
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| 6/10/2014 5:34:07 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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gamerman17
New York, NY
30, joined Apr. 2010
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Cryptolocker is a nasty no holds barred virus. Thank Goodness we haven't experienced it at work. However, I've heard thru the grapevine that one of our partner companys got hit and ended up paying the ransom. I would think that this could be mitigated by having reliable frequent backups.
I've actually experienced that same virus during an internship within an financial firm. Two several days before it was wiped clean off our computer. Luckily, the firm had several backup files within their vault so not too much information was lost during that crisis......gamer
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| 6/13/2014 7:45:46 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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debyduh
Hamburg, PA
54, joined May. 2014
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buy an external hardrive. Back up regularly. unplug the back up when done backing up. If you get crypto physically unplug the internet and reformat the computer.
there is also a new on called "your browser is locked" it is not a virus but a direct to a bad web page. Just close the browser with task manager.
There are a few good videos to show you how to deal with Crypto. Watch them and be prepared.
My daughter got her first lesson with the browser blocker stupid page. He first thought when I explained computer viruses was can we shoot these people. LOL I wish. prevent is the best defense.
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| 6/23/2014 5:47:06 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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stanleyzee
Dayton, OH
60, joined Dec. 2012
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Hi beginner here...but I'm learning
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| 6/24/2014 6:35:37 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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cupocheer
Assumption, IL
68, joined May. 2010
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I contracted viralmenigoencephalitis but I survived.
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| 8/9/2014 4:47:09 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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1_prettyapple
Lawrenceville, GA
38, joined Apr. 2014
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I need help with my laptop now, hands on
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| 8/11/2014 5:18:32 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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deeptangoflyfre
San Diego, CA
49, joined Jan. 2014
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@1_prettyapple - What's up with your laptop?
If there is a virus, can you get to another computer that does not have a virus but has internet access? Pick up a thumb drive and check out one of these utilities:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/system-security/tp/free-bootable-antivirus-software.htm
Or provide some more info...
Plenty of capable hands ready
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| 8/11/2014 5:43:29 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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stanleyzee
Dayton, OH
60, joined Dec. 2012
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One day I'll figure it out
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| 8/11/2014 10:46:50 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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cupocheer
Assumption, IL
68, joined May. 2010
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| 9/6/2014 5:04:22 AM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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gamerman17
New York, NY
30, joined Apr. 2010
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buy an external hardrive. Back up regularly. unplug the back up when done backing up. If you get crypto physically unplug the internet and reformat the computer.
there is also a new on called "your browser is locked" it is not a virus but a direct to a bad web page. Just close the browser with task manager.
There are a few good videos to show you how to deal with Crypto. Watch them and be prepared.
My daughter got her first lesson with the browser blocker stupid page. He first thought when I explained computer viruses was can we shoot these people. LOL I wish. prevent is the best defense.
My new accounting job had to constantly do that in terms of actually starting out due to the numerous threats in viruses and Trojan horses that t hey constantly see. They don't trust too many virus protection software aside from a few when it comes to this threat, so this for them is the next best thing. I might have to check some of these videos out myself......gamer
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| 11/15/2014 10:13:41 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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daveissolo530
Denham Springs, LA
38, joined Jun. 2014
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Nearly 1 year ago a rogue anti-virus was downloaded onto my computer from a free Xbox and PlayStation 3 survey scam pop up on my computer.It was called System Security 2011 and it stopped me from going online.I used a real antivirus called Malware Bytes Anti-Malware to get rid of it but it's still there.My computer is slower and slower than ever.Please help.
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| 12/24/2014 7:31:30 PM |
Worst Virus You've Experienced? |
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debyduh
Hamburg, PA
54, joined May. 2014
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Run Avast boot scan. Then run Malewarebytes. If that doesn't clean everything out then you lost some system files and need to reformat or there is stuff that needs to be cleaned out of the registry which is time consuming and requires knowledge. Both those program have free versions that clean everything up.
If your computer is infected you will need to physically unplug from the internet and download those programs on a clean computer and transfer and install, then run on infected computer. After the computer is cleaned you have to update the virus definitions and scan again. It will take better part of a day.
Much quicker to back up regularly and reformat.
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