I've heard a few on here talk about the virus'that's going around on the net. I went on a christian music forum the other day, and before I knew it, I was zapped with an infection. A porno site. My
AVG protection helped, but they tricked me by setting up their page, as my home page, So every time I would click on the internet, their homepage would come up and infect me again. I didn't know it at the time. My son finally came over and fixed it for me. I just had to change the home page again. The only thing, at this point it still remains in "my reserve files". Until my son gets back over, it remains there. He said it wouldn't affect my internet usage. So far, he's right. I've been able to use it without that one bothering me, but I was almost caught into another one. There seems to be a flood of them all of a sudden. Looks like these "hackers" are having their self a time. Evil never pays off. It's sad when a person takes delight in destroying someone else's privelidges. Hope they get a change of life before it's too late. Well, I've vented a little bit. I've downloaded one of micro softs updates. Hope that will help a little Makes me a little wary now everytime I click on the internet. By the way, that's all it's affected so far, was my internet files... Well thanks for listening. If there is any other advice you might could give it would be appreciated. I'm not sure how to get them out of "the reserve files" ( as my son stated), so I guess I'll have to wait on him
wounded temporarily , but still kicking
Steve.........

A few months ago, my computer started slowing way down and sometimes I would get up in the mornign and my computer was already logged in - did it all by itself.

So after some searching, I downloaded a program calld Ad-aware 6. It was free and did a scan of my PC for "spyware". Found something like 80 files and several forms of spyware that got secretly downloaded and was sending info about me to who knows.

I've got all that stuff remove and run Ad-aware every couple of weeks and once in a while if still finds something suspicious.

sparkync

I suggest you try this free spyware program.
I have been using it for sometime now and have had no problems with it.
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download

If you do not yet use an antivirus application, this one is not fancy but so far it’s free for personal use, and updated frequently. Dieter and crew do a fantastic job. www.free-av.com




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 03-11-2004).]

I sure hope it's an _anti_-spyware program!

Try this software, it's free, but they do take donations. http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download
It cleaned my system up in a few minutes. It found over 100 ad/spy programs on my computer, one of which was redirecting all my searches to their search engine.

If you want to stop pop-up ads go to www.panicware.com it work great also.

sparkync,

I like christian music too. What site was that so I know to stay away.

The name of the site is " Electronic Hymnal Message Board". It didn't give me time to get off. It just zapped me as soon as the site came up. I'll be "leary" of going back to it Steve

My antivirus program automatically looks for updates and installs them every time I boot up my computer.
I'm also behind a firewall.
It's absolutely amazing how many "invaders" are out there trying to link up with you at any given time. Not a day goes by without an attempt to "get into my stuff".

You might also want to use Spybot Search and Destroy and Hijack This, both free although Spybot does ask for a donation.

Hijack This is a bit different in that it will give you a log of everything running and loaded on your machine. You can then elect to have it delete any questionable items. There is a tutorial site that you will want to go to before you do anything. You don't want to delete anything that should be there. There is also a website with a message board like this where people can post their log and the experts will get back to you about your problems.

Not all anti-spy software will get everything so it is a good idea to use a few. I had serious problems with my machine locking up and hanging when I shut down. It was because of all that spyware in there.

All of those problems have been solved bit I still have a problem with search engines and some other sites notably anti-spyware sites. Everything is fine after I boot the machine for from minutes to all day. At some point I will not be able to access Google or any other search engine as well as the sites I mentioned. If I shut down and reboot everything will be fine for another period of time. This doesn't fit the usual method of operation for spyware which denies service to search engines all the time. This is easy to find. Whatever this is none of the anti-spy or anti- virus software will find it. It's real clever but someday when I have the time I'll find it. These bums should be thrown in jail!

Quote " I went on a Christian music forum"

Sure you did

Steve,

Well...if you want a safe place to listen to Christian-pop music....there's a station from Des Plaines, Ill. called 106.7 FM - The Fish. It serves the Chicago metropolitan area.

Check it out at http://www.1067thefish.com

I'm not into religious-themed music....but this one has a cute & catchy jingle that I really dug (i'm into radio station jingles).



Disclaimer: I don't work for The Fish or its parent company Salem Communications!


[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 03-17-2004).]

ayrton, I'm sorry, I didn't understand your comment on the "Christian Music Forum". Thanks Steve

Panda Platinum Internet Security will stop 98% of malware and spyware which are the new threats. I believe everyone is pretty much overcome the attachment vulnerabilities.
http://www.pandasoftware.com/home/default.asp

If you are interested in an operating system that will allow zero penetrations of any kind whatsoever, and never needs updating then I suggest Bodacion Technologies "Hydra" System. It requires no updates or much IT support, to speak of. It's impenetrable. This would be an operating system that you would offer a customer with the base system starting at around $17,000.
http://www.bodacion.com/products.html
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-pdp10/2003/04/15/0000.html

I do not work or represent either of these companies.

I do use their products though.

I'll 2nd spybot. Great program. Can't beat the price. It also seems to work. Beware of pop-ups that say your PC is infected, download this. Once you download that your PC is infected.

It is a shame that some can make a living by filling every PC possable up with garbage. Once your infected you PC opens some pages and they make a few cents.

Tom

Dare I say it.... Hackers didn't do all that. Legitimate porn pushers did most off it. They write HTML tags that pull up other sites. They love doing that soo much that pay each other to do it. Hackers just found a way to take advantage of it, by linking them all together. You end up with endless pop-up porn ads. A small amount of stuff on one page, or most likely an e-mail can take you off to some server somewhere to download the rest of programs that do all types of damage and mis-direction. Hackers or so they're called like to see this as a form of protest of the vunaralbilities of the internet. Personally I think its funny, not cool, but funny in comparision to REAL damage. Odds are if you clear all of your "cookies" and "temperary internet files" you'll be fine. At worst, an anti-virus program will clear it out for you.

The things I absolutely detest though, are for profit, outright illegal scams. Not spam, SCAMS! The funny ones are when I get an e-mail from "Administrator", of my own website. Not funny ones, like e-mails from "Banks", claiming they need information like SSN, pin #'s, User ID's etc. You get an e-mail that says your statement is ready to veiw, "Click here" and it sends you to a site that looks and feels like your bank, even checks your balance for you. (With your log in info they can do that) Now they have your log in info, they can start sending money around deep space. YOUR MONEY! I haven't been hit by one, but I catch these type of things in the deleted files all of the time. Anti-virus gets most, but I still see them.

To add to the above wisdom, one way to substantially reduce your exposure to spyware is to switch Firefox for your browser.
A fair bit of the spyware out there uses ActiveX as the infection path, and Firefox does not automatically run ActiveX scripts the way that IE does.
Before I made the switch to Firefox, a 2-weekly scan with Adaware would usually turn up 15-20 items for removal. Post-firefox it seems rare for it to find anything at all except for lists of last-opened files and the like.

Mark, 'detest' is a mild way to describe these people. I transfer/convert money from the UK to France, (£s to euros), when I need it, and when the exchange rate is to my advantage. I have to do it by fax, as e-mails are not secure. In fact my bank's computer system won't open attachments, even if the clerk wanted to. Thus the rigmarole every month or so of typing up a request, printing a copy, plugging in the fax, (because I can't run it and the answerphone together), faxing the bank and not being sure of getting the best rate due to the delays of a mechanical transaction. All just so some jerk can have a bit of 'fun' or earn a couple of cents selling crap. It's about time governments started legislating against these b*s and putting them in jail and confiscating their assets.
Alan

Month ago, maybe over a year. computer running real slow, connecting to internet automatically, bookmarks showing up to sites I've never seen. And lots and lots of porn emails every day. some days nearly a hundred.

Downloaded and ran Ad Aware 6. Found spyware and removed it.

Then I went to Tools-->internet options--> security--> custom--> and set "run active x controls" to "no". So nobody can run programs on my computer to install this stuff.


That fixed it but means I get annoying prompts all the time warning me about active x controls trying to run.

So I found the solution...I downloaded firefox as my web browser for free and don't use internet explorer anymore. All better now.

I am running Aol 9 Security with the bundled McAfee security suite.
I think my machine ran better with the spyware and viruses.

Gee, I thought AOL was a virus.

Spybot just intercepted an attempt to change my 'home page'.
Phew!

Alan

ps. Just trying out the bold and italics for future use!

For browser hijacks I also highly recommend HijackThis .
It's a little more 'hands on' than other solutions but it gives you nice clear options, and a chance to see the raw registry entries that may [or may not] be causing you problems.