Windows worm hits 8.9 million PCs in past week

reply to post by MBF


Thats generally how it starts... I use AVG too, pretty good at detecting Trojans also.
You may wish to download Malware Bytes, it can detect and remove some pretty awful threats. Once its been removed you may wish to clear out any system restore checkpoints because if anything happens in the future and you have to revert the computer back you'll find the trojan will be back also.

Turning off system restore imediately clears all checkpoints.. just make sure you re-enable it afterwards.

Hope that helps
Morgs

Check the news. This virus may be a dud.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

reply to post by morg9000


Thanks for the info. I'll give it a try.

Originally posted by zooplancton
17 years on a mac.
never once a malicious piece of software effecting my day to day living.
no viruses, no melted HD.

gotta love being the small guy.

Enjoy Apple while you can. Steve Jobs is no longer at Apple and probably has about 6 months to live due to his previous bout of pancreatic cancer. Of course, Apple insists he's coming back to work in June, but then they also told you that all he had was a rare "hormone disorder".

reply to post by sos37


It sounds like a trigger for rogue software like XP antivirus and such. Its still early days yet but I always like to assume the worst.

I caught a google video about steve jobs recent condition a couple of weeks ago, poor guy didnt look well.

Morgs

reply to post by wolf241e


No problem mate, twice the exposure - its all good.
Good idea posting on BTS.

Morgs

FLAG for you morg!

Past few days have been chaotic on my computer (HP vs15) with phone modem... like a mind of it's own!

Screen keeps getting blocked by a new one every few moments! The upper right corner displays the site I'm on, and these interruptions are called: High Speed Internet Monitor. Then super fast flashes of different sites, with everything from car buyer, to speedo, to senior citizen search!

While trying to type this post, I've had to click-off the intrusions six times already!

Seven!

Takes the fun out of my favorite sites, like ATS...

reply to post by FRIGHTENER


Ta for the flag )

That may not be the actual trojan but it sounds like you've definately got something on your machine. Best thing for you to do would be to download both malware bytes and spybot (i tend to get spybot from www.download.com. click bellow the search results bellow the ads)

www.Malwarebytes.org for malware bytes.
Run the scan with this first because chances are this will take it out. I normally use 2/3 packages of anti-spyware just to make sure. Let it update first before you run a scan.

Take care, there's some nasty buggers out there... some pretty awful trojans too )

Morgs

The biggest problem with windows is that a lot of people that don't understand computers buy a computer and never put a AV program on to them, They spread virus programs all over the net.

Part of this I blame on micros**t for not adding a AV to there product that works.

98% of the bot-nets out there are on computers with the windows OS

Get rid of the bot nets and most of the virus problems will go away.

reply to post by ANNED


Far be it from me to defend microsoft but do you remember the lawsuit filed against microsoft a few years back regarding IE? I seem to remember it reported that it was deemed an unfair advantage that they held regarding the browser.. though Im sure it was down to the way they had setup the OS to begin with.

The same could have happened if they would have released a Anti-Virus app to run as default.

I think your right to a point with the AV but I think the firewall can be a more effective tool (specially where trojans are concerned). The main issue I have with both XP's firewall and Vista's is its set to allow traffic in by default and not deny - thats not a true firewall. Vista's is a more effective doormat but thats all Im going to give it.

Morgs

reply to post by spitefulgod


lol... I can't stand macs anymore... I've used 8.6 and 9.3(?) as well as 3 releases of OSX. If mac OS pooches, it's a total pain to fix... just reload. I've pooched Linux a couple times in the past trying out various distros and was able to recoveer the installs with simple script changes. Basically, I won't pay for any mac OS. I considered it, but no. Besides, proprietary hardware and software really ticks me off. I'm one of those that's happy with my PC and free OS and software that is constantly updated. What fun is having a hot rod if you can't work on it and make it better?

I think I know part of the reason I hardly ever got viri was because I don't like the functions of MS apps. Every new install gets IE used only once... to download Firefox. After that, it's Winamp and Trillian, and of course Thunderbird. Anything else I could find 3rd party apps for I would. Also, before anything else, I turn off MSMSGs... omfg what a joke! I can see it being useful as an interoffice chat client to increase productivity, but wow... I had more problems with that thing popping up in the middle of a gaming session than any other part of Windows, and learned within 2 weeks that it was getting shut down every time I reload.

TIP: If you're worried about getting virus from chat clients, try MEEBO... it may not actually be any more secure, but at least it's easier to be dillusional about it.

Oh, I kinda miss doing tech support. I teched for AOhelL through an outsource ccenter. This thread was weekly occurrence (until the release of ME... then it became hourly, lol). AOL internal would just tell clients to reboot and hope they got an outsource center (our center had the highest fix rate). Lots of times we would find out their problem was some trojan or worm that was only partially working... the other times a virus was suspected, and we couldn't find one, it turned out they had simply tried to upgrade to ME (which, itself, acted like one great big kernel dependent virus, imho).

I wouldn't be suprised to find out this thing is a dud. I've encountered MANY dud virus doing tech. Sometimes a prog wouldn't run right and we'd track it down to an infected dll that was TRYING to do something, but it was like a quadriplegic trying to eat soup... it just wasn't happening, lol.

btw, did I mention I'm loving Ubuntu? 8.10 seems nicce, but I've never used any of the previous releases. Definitly lighter on resources than SUSE was... and installs from 1 CD rather than 5. Anyways, I go to bed now... chattering my choppers too much and probably way off topic.

I just love it when Mac users or Linux users come to threads like this and start running their mouths as if they're real awesome. All the time, they just come to these threads and think they're underground hackers.

Guess what - Your operating system doesn't make you cool, overclocking doesn't make you cool and neither do organic drinks.

"Oooooh, look at me! I'm trendy and do yoga while listening to my iPawd!"

Nobody cares, go use your Mac and stfu.

"Oh, you use Microsoft? I'm superior to you because I talk in cryptic codes to my friends".

Go use your Linux OS and gtfo.

reply to post by ANNED


They can't do that as it would be anti competative and they would get screwed for millions (as usual). The best they can do is release the malicious software patches in windows update that gets rid of the most malicious virii / spyware at the time.

Soooo who actually thinks that some of these virii are actually created by the antivirus industries to keep you forking out for their products, well those you actually have to pay for anywho.

Hey I use Windows... And it totally sucks.

Microsoft over the years has gone to greater and greater lengths to deny you the use of your own machine.

Their basic approach is to treat as some scum sucker, whose only purpose in life is to steal software.

It's loaded with an insane amount of code that DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the average user.

But you guys just go on patting yourselves on the back... Do you think at some point it will dawn on you on how powerful the hardware truly is...

And exactly how little performance you get out it?

The only guys that write worse software for the PC is HP.

The truly funny part is everyone tries to act like it's normal that their are 1000s of active pieces of malware floating around at any one given moment.

No really, how many of the 'fixes' wouldn't even install (or took some other critical service down)!

The fact that there really ISN'T a workable ALTERNATIVE, doesn't excuse it.

Say Bill MicroSux... Is it time to bring the coding back to the good old USA, maybe then we can get SOME of the functions in the .NET languages to work correctly?

(NOT funny! Really...)

reply to post by Angry Potato


Calm down with the hostilities,

it is not required or necessary in these forums.

Originally posted by Angry Potato
I just love it when Mac users or Linux users come to threads like this and start running their mouths as if they're real awesome. All the time, they just come to these threads and think they're underground hackers.

Guess what - Your operating system doesn't make you cool, overclocking doesn't make you cool and neither do organic drinks.

"Oooooh, look at me! I'm trendy and do yoga while listening to my iPawd!"

Nobody cares, go use your Mac and stfu.

"Oh, you use Microsoft? I'm superior to you because I talk in cryptic codes to my friends".

Go use your Linux OS and gtfo.

I hoope that wasn't directed at me... I'm pretty much brand new to Linux. What I was showing is that there are perfectly good alternatives to Windows OS. If you get tired of getting shafted through a back port, give it some consideration. I've used Windows sincce the very first version we had on our 286... of course, it never got used and it was easier to just use DOS without a front-end at the time, but it improved with WIN 3.1. I'm not saying I'm COOL for using Linux... I'm saying I'm cool because I made the change for better and don't have to worry about all the MS Windows crap anymore (for the most part). You jealous because you are a Windows addict? Don't bash on me for not being a winsheep.

Originally posted by spitefulgod
Soooo who actually thinks that some of these virii are actually created by the antivirus industries to keep you forking out for their products, well those you actually have to pay for anywho.

I'm convinced of it... Like I stated earlier, when I decided to use the 90-day free trial, I got virus up the yang. I've had many friends who have ended up with almost exacting results. Guess what? None of us use antivirus software anymore, and we catch less than other people we know who DO use software. If you let Windows do it's updates, it essentially keeps it's "immune system" healthy. We (my friends and I) basically only run virus scanning if we suspect something. For me, personally, about 1/4 of the time I do a sccan, it comes up with nothing (usually ends up being a pooched reg entry or conflicting software issues). So, yeah... from personal experience I'm fairly convinced that alot of virus are propogated FOR the software. Job security, ensures the companies can keep selling their software. I don't think it's all virus, but a good portion.

It's fairly simple... contact someone, give them a couple hundred to write a virus, then you take that virus, and spread it. Create the need. What's a couple hundred bucks paid to a coder when you just made a couple hundred thousand from sales of the software to get rid of the virus? It's essentially the same as mechanics sabotaging customer vehicles in order to charge them more money for repairs.

We've been on this subject for YEARS... I used to chat with alot of hackers, crackers, and coders (I liked coders... if ya made friends with them, you could get some really awesome powerful scripts, port blockers, IP maskers, nukes, etc.). A couple of the people I befriended at the time actually made quite a good living just writing virus code for "anonymous clients" part time. Whether these 'clients' were businessmen or a fat slob in a trailer, they never knew. I remember one guy telling me about a virus he wrote that was supposed to target a specific bank account, empty it, somehow inject numbers into the system to throw them off for a couple days, and then done. He said he made about $2000 off that one alone, which took him all but a night to write. Can't say for sure that none of these people were lying to me or not, but after getting some of the IRC toys from these guys, I'm inclined to believe them more than not.

Ive used windows OS's since Win 3.11, never had any problems, never had to reformat or reinstall, and all of my machines are still running today, even my old MS Dos 5.0, 6.0 pc's are still chuggin along just fine.

Never had any problem with my Win95b, Win98SE, WinXP Pro and my two Vista Premium machines. One of my Vista machines run 24/7 and runs my radio station's automation software and SQL server and feeds meta data to my station's website.

Never had any virus or trojan problems.

And probably the reason for such an excellent track record of running machines is because I dont visit those porn sites and illegal p2p music sites and share files that leave the machine open to attack.

Plus the fact I am behind 5 hardware firewalls.


Cheers!!!!

reply to post by RFBurns


lol... I'm guessing you aren't interested in increasing your penis size or giving money to African Royalties, either? Definitly smart.

Honestly, most of my windows problems have been with IRQ sharing and hardware problems/failures. Sometimes it was my own fault for incorrectly uninstalling a prog.


I was just thinking... I used to use an old virus lab prog to quarintine and do virtual runs of virus on a VOS (virtual operating system). I wonder if anyone makes a prog like that anymore... we could probably use that to check the integrity and functions of this virus on an isolated machine (I have a Dell Optiplex GX110 with Win2k I'd be willing to fry for it!)

reply to post by Earthscum




Ive heard of a proggy like that before. Have not seen anything like that in a long time.

I dont blame you for offering your Win2k machine as the test bed!



Cheers!!!!