Community weekly poll: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus?
- 11/18/05 4:17 PM
Yep a few times
by markandcheryl - 5/11/05 1:08 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Mainly by the new ones like blaster and sober. But did have one in 2000 which kille my pc dead, green screen red screen black screen hard drive dead. Had to do a reformat, the lot. Why? wasnt computer savvy and didnt know I had to upgrade nortons! DUH!!!
Now I pay for macafees via aohell, but previously used Innoculate it, Sohpos and avg. They all work well enough, Panda is crap though.
My story
by audiotherapy - 5/11/05 1:18 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
hello everyone, first of all to say this is a great community and website, of course, my primary source for technology. Secondly about the virus dilemma, I was infected I believe but Im not sure because by running scandisk I somehow achieved to delete my windows system .dll files and I did not have the XP cd with me, it was the exam season and all my revision in the PC so you can imagine the annoyance, later I found out that there were Trojans present. Recently a W32 Trojan generator tried to get at me but I found it deep somewhere, filthy thing attached itself to some of my files, so I deleted those, and now I have AVAST Antivirus with Sygate firewall which are both very good especiall Sygate is a VERY powerful firewall sometimes senses danger cuz my ports are scanning my IP or something, so all I must say is keep protected from this neverending threat of ******** who have no lives and thus they have to create something to ruin ours. I fear that they are getting too advanced however there is always a counter-force, otherwise people wouldnt make money off of each other right? So to conclude I say keep safe, out of 'unstable' places cuz these things just jump right in uninvited at the moment you least expect them.. Peace
I've never had a virus on my systems - ever!
by JCitron - 5/11/05 2:04 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I can honestly say that my systems have never been infected with a virus. I am running a Microsoft OS, and I have for the twenty-plus years, not a 'Nix or Apple OS as some would presume. For my antivirus product, I use Trend Micro's PC-cillin 2005 Internet Security.
How do I do it?
1) Keep the antivirus patterns up-to-date.
2) Enable realtime scanner on all files.
3) Periodically, like once a week run a full system scan.
4) Enable incoming email virus scanning. I delete all attachments if they are infected.
5) Do not accept email from everyone and anyone. If I don't know that you're sending me an attachment, I delete it when it arrives. This includes the message-in-a message emails that come in from family. (Usually the ones that have AOL seem to do this).
6) Stay diligent, and keep the guard up using a firewall.
So that's how I keep virus free.
John
Never infected
by Mr Mambo - 5/11/05 2:28 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I never had any virues, I work on a Macintosh computer. I had been using the Apple Macintosh computer since I was in college 1989. Tha'ts 14 years.
Because the PC (Computers running on Windows) are cheaper to make and to buy, more than 90% of the people in the whole world use them. The Windows system is sold to many many manufacturers. So when you get a PC, any brand, you get a name, but the same Operating System (Windows) With every new version of the OS you get a little extra, but the basically the same.
There are so many users and so many hackers (programmers) for the PC. It makes them easy target. And there are so many people that don't like the Monopoly that MS Windows has.
The Macintosh on the other hand has a closed system, there are less people using it, so the virus makers don't bother to program virures.
Rememeber the Y2K (the year 2000), the people using Macintosh did not even think about anything going wrong with their computers.
Virus infections
by Paddy O'Brien - 5/11/05 2:33 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I bought Norton Anti-Virus with my printer and before I had an internet connection. I kept it up to date. When Norton kept things secure by sending e-mails to their site, I changed to McAfee and I update every time I log on. I scan every time. I have only had a firewall for five years or so - and most of its reports are checks by my own syatem - but it is always on.
Just Once: Pretty Park
by kgrossley - 5/11/05 3:01 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I got hit the Pretty Park virus back a couple of years ago. A friend was infected and I wasn't aware of this virus at the time. As soon as I tried to run the program and it didn't do anything I knew something was really wrong. I did some research on the web that let me know what it was and I was able to find a remover tool for it so I could clean mine and my friend's PC. Haven't had anything more since then.
virus trouble
by glassman69_2003 - 5/11/05 3:10 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
computer companies should put a well known antivirus software on all computers with a years free update if they want people to buy there prouduct
Virus-prompt response=quick retrieval of files
by el_dub04 - 5/11/05 3:47 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Yes. Last year, I was attacked by netskyq and it completely erased all my system files. I had run a scan with Norton and it detected the virus. I thought I had removed the virus, but when Norton tried to erase the virus, the virus was activated and when I restarted it, I was missing certain files. Because I had thought I had erased the virus, and because I did not know the seriousness of the virus, I did not make the connection. However, I tried to fix the computer on my own and eventually lost more files. What I didn't know then was that they were still available on the hard drive if I would have taken it to a specialist right away, but the files became deteriorated after a couple of days and when the computer techie attempted to retrieve them, the files were so deteriorated that many of them were irretrievable. Lesson: Take care of those viruses right away!
Infected once, in 1997
by catherine1 - 5/11/05 4:46 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It was my first Mac, a souped-up 6300e. I was very proud of it.
After 3 months, it crawled to a near-stop.
As I was reading about the possible infection by the virus, my hair stood up in the back of my neck, and, following the directives left on a tech web-site, I actually got rid of it all by myself.
I haven't been infected with anything since, and this, a 20" G5 with Mac OS X.3.9, is my third Mac.
Although I became cross-platform savvy and acknowledge Windows as the "de-facto" tool in most of the business world, I remain faithful to Mac for elegance and peace of mind.
Virus, you bet-cha
by pkipnis - 5/11/05 4:52 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I get hundreds of emails a day and even with good antivirus (RAV and now AVG), one can occasionally get through. While it was a pain, the antivirus removed the bagel worms and never failed to clean the machine. Short of flogging the SB's who think it's cool to unleash hell on earth, all you can do is have a good antivius and spyware software AND UPDATE THEM DAILY!!!
Hacktool Virus
by suren1934 - 5/11/05 6:01 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have an Macintosh Laptop with OS 10.3. My computer was recently infected with hacktool. I would appreciate advise on how to get rid of it.
Which Hacktool is it? There's a lot.
by Crash2100 - 5/12/05 11:14 AM In reply to: Hacktool Virus by suren1934There's about 90 different hacktool's listed in the Symantec virus database. If the virus is just named "Hacktool" then it's likely not much to worry about, because it's likely not really a virus. It's just what they call a "malicious program."
Hacktool
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/hacktool.html
List of Hacktool viruses
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/auto/index/indexH.html
my computer has been infected several times
by t.g.janakiraman - 5/11/05 6:14 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
this is mainly due to using p2p software
My Secret!!!!!!!
by Titmouse712 - 5/11/05 7:57 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Common sense is a big secret! Most don't have much.
Does your PC have anti-virus software? If no, you
better get some. Two at least. Now ask yourself, do I
visit the kind of websites where a virus might be
lurking? If so, you got to stop that. There are very
good anti-virus programs out that are freeware. Do you have a firewall? A real one! Not the toy they put
in WinXP. If not, get one. Again, there are very good
firewalls that are freeware. Install these things on
your PC and learn how to set them, and Keep it updated
too. This is a lot less hassle than format and reinstall.
haven't had the pleasure as of yet
by vrrobinson - 5/11/05 9:09 PM In reply to: Has your computer ever been infected by a virus? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have been dealing with protecting myself from the virus bug since the days of the 2400bps modems. I had a friend that of all things to collect, he made up his mind that he was going to get every virus out there (what massive amount of infected disks). He is the one that gave me some great advise. Treat everything you receive knowingly and unknowingly as a potential virus carrier. I have followed that rule and to this date I have never had a computer infected with a virus. When it comes to emails that may contain a virus, I have several levels of security there as well. 1st level is I have multiple email accounts with different providers. One is given out to everybody, such as when I register on a web site for something. This account is protected by the provider, but it also is accepted and brought in by a mail reader that is purely text based. Everything that is not pure text isn't even accepted by the thing. Things that are attached are sent to an attachment folder and there it sits ready for scanning. I also treat this email account as if were my junk mail folder. 95% or more of the emails that go to this account are automatically deleted without being read. The second email account is the account that is primarily given to friends, relatives, and highly trusted companies. This email account is also protected by the provider. It is the account that I normally do read the messages found in it. This account is viewed by a reader that is able handle all forms of email. The third is my business email account with is protected by the company where I work. This email account is only given to business associates for business use. If things arrive into this account that did not orginate from within the company structure then it is automatically deleted. As you can tell I do a great deal of automatic deletions.
I work with computers daily and have for the last 30 years. I have seen what a hacked computer can do to a person and I refuse to be that person.
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