Viruses

[Sim]

I am currently getting inundated with virus emails sent inadvertantly by users from our forum - these are the types of viruses/worms which infiltrate via Outlook email clients and send themselves out to everyone in your addressbook and any other email address it finds on your computer.

There are a couple of nasty ones around at the moment, and there is no excuse for people to be getting infected with this stuff.

So please - make sure you have a decent antivirus program loaded - one with automatic updating facilities and email scanning !!

 

[agent007]

Hi Sim,

Does your antivirus has the facility to notify sender when virus is detected?

Regards,

James.

 

[Tibor]

Sim,

I am on Windows XP Home edition. It supposed to have some virus detection software supplied with it. If this is correct, is this one get automatically updated by MS? If not, do you kno wanything that is

1. Free

2. Very cheap

3. Works

Last year I had Norton pro 2002, and as a result of th equality, I just NEVER want to see Norton again.

Cheers,


Tibor

 

[Sim]

Originally posted by agent007
Hi Sim,

Does your antivirus has the facility to notify sender when virus is detected?

Regards,

James.

No James.

These viruses usually use email address spoofing or some other such mechanism to hide their origin, so notifying the "sender" will not achieve anything, as the true sender is often difficult to discover.

This latest batch of virus emails mostly say they come from [email protected] - which they do not. If you look very carefully at the email headers you can see that they actually originate from somewhere else.

 

[Sim]

Originally posted by Tibor
I am on Windows XP Home edition. It supposed to have some virus detection software supplied with it. If this is correct, is this one get automatically updated by MS? If not, do you kno wanything that is

1. Free

2. Very cheap

3. Works

Last year I had Norton pro 2002, and as a result of th equality, I just NEVER want to see Norton again.

Tibor, as far as I am aware there is no virus detection software included with WinXP Home - so you should really go out and buy yourself something.

Writing programs to detect and remove viruses is a very difficult and costly exercise. I would NEVER use a piece of free antivirus software, since you be sure that you would not be getting the updates that you really need to ensure ongoing protection against newly discovered viruses. Although someone may give the software away for free and you just pay a subscription for the virus updates - which is slightly different.

There have been plenty of threads about virus software on the forum in the past - I suggest you do a search for some of those recommendations. Personally, I use Norton Antivirus - it works for me.

 

[Tibor]

Thanks Sim,

I might just do some more homework. After my last experience with Norton, I am not really interested to get any of their stuff, but its only me.

Tibor

 

[Tibor]

Just another idea regarding to viruses.

I have created a dummy email address,

[email protected]

It will be the first one in mail address book and makes the entire thing fail.

Tibor

 

[Rolf Latham]

Hiya

Outlook - bah !

Ta

rolf

 

[Sim]

Originally posted by Tibor
Just another idea regarding to viruses.

Sorry Tibor, that wont stop them - some of them perhaps, but not all of them - they all work differently.

 

[Aceyducey]

Tibor & others,

When thinking about protection from viruses, don't think 'free' or 'very cheap'...

Think:
- what would it cost me if I lost the entire contents of my hard-drive.
- what would it cost me if I became known as the person who distributed the viruses that caused many other people to lose the contents of their hard-drives (professionally or privately).

Virus protection is like insurance, but pays off more often (no excess to pay).

Most people undervalue & overlook it because you don't notice it until you need it - and then it's too late

Cheers,

(virus-free) Aceyducey

 

[Kevin Hockey]

Originally posted by Tibor
Thanks Sim,

I might just do some more homework. After my last experience with Norton, I am not really interested to get any of their stuff, but its only me.

Tibor

Hi Tibor,

We have been using Norton's at my office for a couple of years but changed recently to VET which seems to be working well.

Bottom line is have something, the cost is minimal. My brother swears by McAfee, I haven't used it myself. I have friends running several. It must run automatic updates as there is new viruses out all the time.

If you don't have an anti-virus get one today, you need it otherwise you are having unprotected sex with a prostitute.

Kev

www.nundahrealestate.com.au

 

[geoffw]

AVG, from www.grisoft.com. is free for private users- they make their money from corporate customers. It is very good, and has regular updates.

I used it, unfortunately, to clean up a virus, several years ago. It did an excellent job of cleaning.

 

[Tibor]

Yes, after my experience with Norton 2002 (the bloody thing simply failed during installation, it was a nightmare to uninstall it, Symantec was willing to help on their product, by charging for it)
I also used AVG, which was free and also did a very good job.
Most likely I will go for it again.

Sim

Thanks for your advice (I really do appreciate it), but if you do not have enough money to spend on fancy things (no well paid work) you also start to cut back on expenses and find alternative ways (just like in RE) to achieve the same goal. I am doing it and minimising the spending, big time.
I do regular backups of important data and find ways to get thing either free or at a very low cost. I've done it with several things and I will be doing it again, but always on the lookout for new, working solutions. Software (and other) companies in future will be getting a much smaller amount of money out of me, compare to what they used to.

Thanks to everyone,


Tibor

 

[brains]

"If you don't have an anti-virus get one today, you need it otherwise you are having unprotected sex with a prostitute"

haha.......really!!??

I use Norton with the automatic update and have never had a problem with it, irs an excellent program .

Whats the problem you have Tibor?

 

[Kevin Hockey]

Originally posted by brains
"If you don't have an anti-virus get one today, you need it otherwise you are having unprotected sex with a prostitute"

haha.......really!!??

Yeah, either way you get screwed and then comes the real suffering.

Kev

www.nundahrealestate.com.au

 

[Tibor]

Brains,

I am glad to hear you are happy with it. I am willing to donate you freely the CD-ROM and then you can also have the fun.

I do not want to bore anyone, but I also had major problems with MS XP Home edition installation (finally MS had to guide me through to install manually the stuff, which worked well) and I was advised that my CD-ROM device was stuffed.

HMmmm.... (I also used to work for software houses and fully aware of the BS level used).

Facts:

MS Home edition does not read the CD device after about 35 minutes of processing (and CD-reading).

ALL my other software I had to reinstall (including MS software)
DID read the SAME CD device with no problem.

Yes, of course, the CD device does not work. Nothing to do with
the installer program, it is all to the to that CD device.

Same was with Norton, but they also wanted to charge me to 'fix' the installation.

I hope it is enough explanation, to me it was.

Cheers,

Tibor

 

[Sim]

Originally posted by Tibor
Thanks for your advice (I really do appreciate it), but if you do not have enough money to spend on fancy things (no well paid work) you also start to cut back on expenses and find alternative ways (just like in RE) to achieve the same goal. I am doing it and minimising the spending, big time.
I do regular backups of important data and find ways to get thing either free or at a very low cost. I've done it with several things and I will be doing it again, but always on the lookout for new, working solutions.

I understand your reluctance to pay money you can't afford Tibor. However I implore you to try and find an antivirus program that meets both expectations - is cheap (or even better, free) - and also effective. That one Geoffw suggested sounds like a possibility.

Keeping backups is not an solution to virus prevention, since you will merely end up backing up the viruses as well. Once infected, the longer you leave it the more difficult it becomes to remove the infection.

What's more, it's not just about losing personal data - viruses these days are usually no more than a delivery vehicle for more sinister payloads - backdoors and tojans, so that hackers can access your computer and use it as the launch point for DDoS attacks on other computers. They are not interested in your data, they are interested in using your computer to attack others.

Tibor, at the end of the day I can't tell you how to manage your computer, but I do take it personally when people refuse to use some type of protection - since it is not only affecting themselves, it is affecting many other people as well. As I said, I am currently being inundated with spoofed virus emails which I can trace directly back to forum members. Anyone who has ever sent an email to [email protected] and has since become infected with one of these viruses is now spewing infected email at me !

I am not saying that you are one of them, I am only saying please, please make sure you have some form of protection.

 

[RichardK]

Hi Tibor,

When you think that Windows XP Home has inbuilt antivirus, you are probably thinking of the inbuilt firewall.

Totally different to antivirus, but just as essential if you are running cable or ADSL. Hackers don't bother as much with exposed PCs via 56k dialup when there are so many exposed PCs via high speed cable and ADSL.

Activate your firewall.

I've been in IT since 1986, and have sold & installed Nortons Antivirus 2003 on 20 PCs recently - all for different clients, all installed OK with no problems.

I've also worked with corporate antivirus gateways - my last fulltime job had me maintaining antivirus gateways for 10,000 Macs and PCs, and another company with 5,000 PCs, as well as any others ( IT Security Analyst hat, stopping viruses and patching 1500 servers against holes in NT or Win2k )

Nortons is good, and works well.

When XP Home failed to install on your PC, and had to be manually completed, it leads me to think that your hardware is not 100% happy with XP ( or XP is not 100% happy with your hardware ! ) XP has got lots of smart routines and drivers and installs on just about anything ( well, almost ).


What brand and model of CD-R do you have ? - the exact model number off the internal casing would be good to know.


You already own NAV 2002, so why not try installing it again, rather than ditching it. If it was the OEM version that came with PC or some other software, it'll give you 3 months of updates, then it'll cost you about $45 for another 12 months updates every year.

Try the free software if you like, but TANSTAAFL.

If you need support, ask me, I'll help you for $0 ( and a coffee or two ! ). I work from St. Ives and am often out around the Guildford area

rgds,
Richard

 

[paulzag]

Hi gang

Another vote for AVG (free for home use) from a former propeller-head (me!). Fantastic protection. If you want to configure/customise it then you need the pay-version.

The free email and hard-drive protection plus updates in AVG are awesome.

Regards

Paulzag
Dreamspinner

 

[Patosan]

They slow your system down

Hi gang,

Hope you don't mind me saying that I have no further intention of trying anti-virus software or firewalls.

Have tried Nortons package (via free trial d/l) and also the excelent free Zone Alarm firewall. Both slowed down my system significantly ... by at least 20%. In addition using the free d/l sites like Win.mx for music and movies was affected.

So now I do weekly back-ups and use the also excellent and FREE on-line McAfee "house call" virus check regularly. I guess it's worth noting that I've never used "MS Outlook" ... wouldn't know where to begin. I'm a web mail person ... yahoo !

It's my perception that viruses enter systems after the user opens something that they shouldn't have.

Having said all that ... if someone can show a system that doesn't slow everything down I may have a look. Though by definition I don't imagine such a beast exists ... they must check everything ... that takes time and system resources.