How I beat the IS2010 Malware

[Pilgrim]

Housecall from Trend Micro does require an Internet connection to run, but it's free for home use and works well. I run it in tandem with Symantec.

Are you implying that under half of PC users aren't very computer literate?

I'm a dedicated PC user and I think that's an understatement. IMO more than half of PC users are nearly computer illiterate - they're lucky if they can install a program. When I see the knowledge level of people I work with, I wonder how they ever get a PC to function. I don't know of any of my 40 co-workers who even use forums other than our IT staff and less than a handful of people who have computer skills...and that's at a university.

I don't want to get into Mac/PC, because they're both great systems with their own advantages and disadvantages.

But computers aren't isolated in this respect. I think that more than half the population of the US has no clue how their cars work or about how to do any kind of maintenance, and many of them won't even bother to read their owner's manual when a warning light shows up on the dashboard.

Some time in the last 30 years, people stopped taking responsibility for understanding and maintaining equipment they have purchased. It's a shame. But there's good news - forums like this one are everywhere, and if people care enough to ask questions they can find threads like this one. The original post was extremely helpful, and I appreciate the good thoughts shared in threads like this.

 

[SSINTENSE]

Housecall from Trend Micro does require an Internet connection to run, but it's free for home use and works well. I run it in tandem with Symantec.



I'm a dedicated PC user and I think that's an understatement. IMO more than half of PC users are nearly computer illiterate - they're lucky if they can install a program. When I see the knowledge level of people I work with, I wonder how they ever get a PC to function. I don't know of any of my 40 co-workers who even use forums other than our IT staff and less than a handful of people who have computer skills...and that's at a university.

I don't want to get into Mac/PC, because they're both great systems with their own advantages and disadvantages.

But computers aren't isolated in this respect. I think that more than half the population of the US has no clue how their cars work or about how to do any kind of maintenance, and many of them won't even bother to read their owner's manual when a warning light shows up on the dashboard.

Some time in the last 30 years, people stopped taking responsibility for understanding and maintaining equipment they have purchased. It's a shame. But there's good news - forums like this one are everywhere, and if people care enough to ask questions they can find threads like this one. The original post was extremely helpful, and I appreciate the good thoughts shared in threads like this.

This is very true. I've been doing IT support throughout college for some extra cash. Almost no one outside of my team has any computer savvy whatsoever. The interns who are as old as me though seem to be able to handle their own. Generally, the older you are, the more computer illiterate you are.

 

[ogrossman]

...Some time in the last 30 years, people stopped taking responsibility for understanding and maintaining equipment they have purchased...

I don't believe that this is a recent development. You ought to read "Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" if you haven't already. Pirsig makes the case that there are fundamentally two different types of people; those who want to know how things work and those who have no desire to look below the surface...

 

[ogrossman]

.. Generally, the older you are, the more computer illiterate you are.

The older you get the more tired you get of trying to keep up with the technology (spoken from first hand experience). I've worked with more than a dozen different platforms and operating systems in my career. I'm happy to let someone else learn the new ones for a change.

 

[standupright]

malwarebytes+symantec+hijackthis

be careful where you surf.

i haven't had a virus on this computer in 5 years

 

[ldervish]

Which AntiVirus did you use? I use Avira now (Nod32, although good, did not want to work on my computer) and it's awesome.

Yes, Avira. It doesn't seem to interfere with day-to-day stuff like browsing and email functions as much as some others.

Regarding Spybot and Adaware, I regularly use both, but I think neither one is as good as they used to be. In this case, I ran Spybot and it did not catch the IS2010. With the AV 360 malware, one or the other caught it and claimed removal, but upon restart AV 360 reappeared. My feeling is that all of these programs will catch (say) 75% of the bad stuff, but each app will only catch some portion of the remaining 25%. Each one you run will catch something the others didn't. At least that's been my experience.

 

[ldervish]

back up what he needs + fresh install ?

Sure, that's an option, and as I think I related earlier I did do a fresh install after the AV 360 attack. However, it is an hours-long project too, starting with almost an hour for the OS, then all the system updates, bios flash, application install and updates, etc. etc. I'm not a techie so it takes me a while, and fortunately there was 12 to 18 months IIRC between episodes.

This new method will end up better, since I won't have to change any settings or do updates as above, And now that I've climbed the learning curve I know exactly where I'm headed and how to get there.

As long as the bad guys don't block access to the cd or USB ports (since a flash drive would also work nicely).

 

[Kipaste]

Thing is, on a mac, if you're somehow aware, you won't get anything, on Pc it's not so true.

Well, it is true for pc too if you know what you're doing. In my last ten or so years, I've had two viruses, and one of them seemed to be a false alarm as it is something that circulates in modern warfare 2 and is probably due to the fact that it's a badly made game. The other case happened some six years ago because I was stupid enough to open a suspicious file. Malware scans have been clear for the last four or five years.

Constantly updating ban list of ip adresses and urls and daily updating blockers will do just fine.

I'm not saying that this is better than mac situation because it clearly isn't, but it doesn't bother me at all either. But I do have a friend who just got his recording mac nuked by a virus because he thought macs were invulnerable and had no protection. And yes, it destroyed the back up drive too, good bye to three years worth of recordings.

These days I think it's a good idea to protect yourself no matter what platform you're on.

 

[MadMan118]

By getting a mac for the purpose not getting viruses, you are only hiding from the hackers' attention.

Plus, most businesses use PC's

You seem to have Macintosh confused with Linux.
And most medium/large sized companies use Unix/Linux based systems.

/fanboy-ness

 

[heroincredible]

I'm not saying that this is better than mac situation because it clearly isn't, but it doesn't bother me at all either. But I do have a friend who just got his recording mac nuked by a virus because he thought macs were invulnerable and had no protection. And yes, it destroyed the back up drive too, good bye to three years worth of recordings.

These days I think it's a good idea to protect yourself no matter what platform you're on.

Best protection for that situation is don't connect the recording computer to the internet. My drummer started up his own (portable) recording studio, and never connects it to the internet. It might take a little longer transferring files over to another PC in order to email the files to someone, but at least he doesn't have to worry about losing all the recordings to a virus.

 

[fdeck]

And most medium/large sized companies use Unix/Linux based systems.

Wha?

There are a lot of businesses that use Unix/Linux for servers, but Windows still dominates in the office, lab, or factory.

 

[fdeck]

Some time in the last 30 years, people stopped taking responsibility for understanding and maintaining equipment they have purchased.

Some time in the last 30 years, equipment got too complex to understand. In a lot of products, the inner workings take the form of software / firmware code running on a microprocessor. Devices also exploit complicated feedback loops that are hard for anybody but the designer to understand. If something like a home thermostat breaks, we are limited to looking for obvious mechanical problems (broken wires, etc.), then it's off to Home Depot for a new one.

I am probably more tech-savvy than most people. For instance I understand how bass amps work, and I have designed computer hardware and software. But I have very little patience for computers these days. I just want them to work for me. After you have seen a few platforms come and go, you realize that every platform is a pile of ugly compromises, and it is no longer a thrill to learn what they are. When I first got into computers, learning all of the inner secrets made me feel like a master of the universe. Now it makes me feel like a master of the dung heap.

While I am not careless about computer security, I expect that competent engineers can design a secure computer. The security of Linux is not just because it is less popular. It is my understanding that Linux is a more secure OS, and that it benefits from an open source design community that discovers and fixes vulnerabilities quickly.

 

[Disraeli Gears]

Macs are NOT impervious to viruses, as so many people like to think. No more so than any Windows machine. Hackers are sleaze that take the time to write these viruses, and simply want to infect as many machines as possible. Windows remains exponentially more popular among computer users. Why make a virus that targets one machine when you can make one that targets 10?

Thus making Macs less likely to get viruses .

Anyway, I think I got that virus once. I had my computer set to make a system restore point every week, so I just did a system restore back to a point that would have been well before I got the virus.

 

[ldervish]

Anyway, I think I got that virus once. I had my computer set to make a system restore point every week, so I just did a system restore back to a point that would have been well before I got the virus.

I tried to do a System Restore,and it started but was quickly blocked before I could even pick the date.

BTW, I didn't realize until just now that there is a bona fide Norton/Symantec product called Internet Security 2010, so the malware mimics that name.

 

[MJ5150]

I don't even remember the last piece of spyware or virus that got on any of the four computers in my home network.

For those customers of mine that I maintain networks for, I require them to run daily backups. When anything nasty gets on one of their computers, I just re-install the OS or restore from an image. I don't have five hours to clean this kind of stuff up, and my customers don't want to pay me for five hours at $150 an hour to do the work.

Last restore from image I did took...ohhh....about eleven minutes.

-Mike

 

[Pilgrim]

Mike, you are my hero!

System restores for me usually take 10-15 hours. It's one thing to re-install base programs, but then you have to upload 80+ software updates, re-boot a half-dozen times while installing, then go find the additional software I installed on the machine (if I don't have to re-purchase it), then download updates for all those programs and do additional re-boots.

 

[MJ5150]

Mike, you are my hero!

System restores for me usually take 10-15 hours.

Thank you sir.

I'll have to hook you up with Norton Ghost and do a webinar to show you how to use it. You can create "images" of you system at any given time and store them on an external HDD. If you want to refresh your Windows install, or if you get a nasty bug in your system, you can grab a good image and restore it to your computer. As long as you don't mess with the hardware in between images, it's no big deal to restore an image. It takes 10-15 minutes from start to finish.

My wife has this really slick app on her Mac that stores the images, and each image looks like the desktop when she copied it. So she just pages through the "desktops" to find one she wants, then clicks once to restore it. Less than five minuts later, all done. I can't remember the name of that software, but I'll find out and see if there is a Windows version available.

-Mike

 

[fdeck]

Good idea about doing an "image" backup. I just found out that there is an imaging program that runs under Linux. This would have the advantage that you can boot Linux from a live CD or flash drive, and be immune to viruses that can copy themselves from the host computer to a backup drive when the drive is plugged in.

I once infected all of the computers in my house by using one backup drive for all of the computers. My wife brought home a virus from her workplace, on her notebook, and I proceeded to infect two other computers simply by plugging the drive into each system.

 

[Jimmy Bones]

I did something similar with the Brontok malware, but I also used the Microsoft malicious Software Removal Tool, which spoofs the viruses into thinking it's not running antivirus.