Viruses keep coming
1 - 12 of 12 Posts
Joined
·
65 Posts
You might give McAfee a try...I've never had one sneak in the back door. Make sure your firewall is working, too, if you have one...the Windows XP firewall is useless. I use Zone Alarm Pro, and it's never let me down.
And no, I don't work for either company.
And no, I don't work for either company.
Joined
·
7,461 Posts
Good advise LR, Zone alarm is qualit indeed.
Moe, sometimes a virus attaches its self incognito and can't be cleaned soley by doing a scan within windows.
2 things that you can do:
Make a bootable rescue disk from norton's. Shut your computer completely off and boot to the disk. Even if you have one made make a new one, as it may need updated.
Booting to the disk will launch a scan from a true dos mode, which allows the software to do a better job.
2nd:
boot into safe mode and do your windows scan from there. This will launch windows with a limite amount of drivers and allow the NAV software to be more successful.
Also, if you can give me specific names of the virus we may be able to find more specific information.
Moe, sometimes a virus attaches its self incognito and can't be cleaned soley by doing a scan within windows.
2 things that you can do:
Make a bootable rescue disk from norton's. Shut your computer completely off and boot to the disk. Even if you have one made make a new one, as it may need updated.
Booting to the disk will launch a scan from a true dos mode, which allows the software to do a better job.
2nd:
boot into safe mode and do your windows scan from there. This will launch windows with a limite amount of drivers and allow the NAV software to be more successful.
Also, if you can give me specific names of the virus we may be able to find more specific information.
Joined
·
6,776 Posts
Recently Norton detected a virus on my PC at work. Forget what it was called. Because of the goofus lan admin, the virus definitions were about a year and a half out of date. As soon as they allowed updates I found I was infected. Ew ick.
Norton deleted the virus, but there were commands in left the windows registry that caused the virus to "refresh" everytime I booted the computer. Norton's website gave instructions for editing the registry to correct. They may also have had a download to fix it. Yeah I was surprised Norton didn't do a better job of repair.
Anyway after I deleted the offending line from the registry, rescanned the computer, all was well.
Best thing is to keep your virus definitions up to date. That's the only way to keep the damn things from infecting your PC.
Make note of what the virus is called and search for it on Norton's website.
Or try one of the other scanners.
Norton deleted the virus, but there were commands in left the windows registry that caused the virus to "refresh" everytime I booted the computer. Norton's website gave instructions for editing the registry to correct. They may also have had a download to fix it. Yeah I was surprised Norton didn't do a better job of repair.
Anyway after I deleted the offending line from the registry, rescanned the computer, all was well.
Best thing is to keep your virus definitions up to date. That's the only way to keep the damn things from infecting your PC.
Make note of what the virus is called and search for it on Norton's website.
Or try one of the other scanners.
Joined
·
7,461 Posts
Joined
·
65 Posts
Well, Maureen, here's what you do:
Go to http://www.zonelabs.com and download their free Zone Alarm firewall. It doesn't have the bells and whistles that Zone Alarm Pro does (and Zone Alarm Pro is only $40), but it'll keep those nasty hackers out.
Make sure your Windows installation has the necessary updates, too. A lot of those Microsoft critical updates contain patches to close those gaping security holes they designed in. :thumbsup:
Go to http://www.zonelabs.com and download their free Zone Alarm firewall. It doesn't have the bells and whistles that Zone Alarm Pro does (and Zone Alarm Pro is only $40), but it'll keep those nasty hackers out.
Make sure your Windows installation has the necessary updates, too. A lot of those Microsoft critical updates contain patches to close those gaping security holes they designed in. :thumbsup:
Joined
·
65 Posts
Oh, and did I mention it was FREE?
You may also want to consider getting a router. Generally a router is used to connect more then one computer to a single cable/dsl connection but the vast majority have a hardware firewall built in.
The advantage over a software firewall is you never have to worry about upgrading it like you do software and it is only a one time purchase. The disadvantage is they don't check out-going traffic like Zone Alarm does.
Ideally, you would run both a hardware and software firewall but I've found that is normally overkill if you use general safe Internet practices.
First rule: NEVER EVER hook your computer to the Internet without some type of firewall.
Second: Never EVER open ANY attachment unless you are expecting it. That even means from people you know. Unless someone tells me they are sending me something BEFORE they send it, any attachment gets deleted before I look at it or the email.
Last: Run a good virus checker and check ALL emails and all programs before you run them. Keep it updated, checking for updates every week at a minimum.
Using these 4 rules above (hardware firewall and #1, #2 and #3) I have only ever had one virus and that was over 5 years ago before I ran a virus checker.
The advantage over a software firewall is you never have to worry about upgrading it like you do software and it is only a one time purchase. The disadvantage is they don't check out-going traffic like Zone Alarm does.
Ideally, you would run both a hardware and software firewall but I've found that is normally overkill if you use general safe Internet practices.
First rule: NEVER EVER hook your computer to the Internet without some type of firewall.
Second: Never EVER open ANY attachment unless you are expecting it. That even means from people you know. Unless someone tells me they are sending me something BEFORE they send it, any attachment gets deleted before I look at it or the email.
Last: Run a good virus checker and check ALL emails and all programs before you run them. Keep it updated, checking for updates every week at a minimum.
Using these 4 rules above (hardware firewall and #1, #2 and #3) I have only ever had one virus and that was over 5 years ago before I ran a virus checker.
Joined
·
6,776 Posts
yeah, just by visiting an infected website, or opening an attachment, you can get a virus. A firewall isn't effective against those.
There are bad things that a firewall does block (worms and annoying windows messaging popups offering to sell you something to prevent windows messaging popups*) but you need up to date virus protection running on your PC.
Some of the most annoying crap out there are "ad-trojans". All that "free" software you download does a bunch of stuff you don't want, the least of which is slowing down your computer. Because you invite these in, actually install them, no firewall or anti-virus software will help (I think Norton and McAffee are starting to notice these though). There is help in the form of "Ad-aware" and other software designed to detect and delete ad-trojans.
It's a jungle out there.
5 years ago I felt virus protection software was worse than the chance of catching a virus. Now I happily subscribe to it on any PC I use.
*you don't need a firewall to get rid of these, just disable the "windows messaging service". This is a gimmick MS threw in to give lan administrators a way of broadcasting messages to people using the lan, but it gives a back-door to any geek to annoy you. Check windows help for advice on how to disable this "service".
There are bad things that a firewall does block (worms and annoying windows messaging popups offering to sell you something to prevent windows messaging popups*) but you need up to date virus protection running on your PC.
Some of the most annoying crap out there are "ad-trojans". All that "free" software you download does a bunch of stuff you don't want, the least of which is slowing down your computer. Because you invite these in, actually install them, no firewall or anti-virus software will help (I think Norton and McAffee are starting to notice these though). There is help in the form of "Ad-aware" and other software designed to detect and delete ad-trojans.
It's a jungle out there.
5 years ago I felt virus protection software was worse than the chance of catching a virus. Now I happily subscribe to it on any PC I use.
*you don't need a firewall to get rid of these, just disable the "windows messaging service". This is a gimmick MS threw in to give lan administrators a way of broadcasting messages to people using the lan, but it gives a back-door to any geek to annoy you. Check windows help for advice on how to disable this "service".
Joined
·
17 Posts
even though this is an older thread, I would like to contribute a bit of advice for those that may not know. I am an Admin. for a rather large n/w and when we rolled out to XP one thing that caused some bugs (disregarding the users LOL) was the sytem restore feature. Please keep in mind that most viruses will propagate down into your system restore files. Since the OS is using these files (if the System restore feature is turned on) your AV may not be able to access these files during a scan. Thus the virus will continue to be detected on your PC. You can overcome this in a number of ways. The best is to boot up into safe mode and then run the AV. The second is to turn off system restore(this will delete previous restore points) and then run AV scan. There are a number of registry tweaks and such that can be done but I would NOT suggest these unless you are VERY comfortable with working in the registry. Also, the website "spyware" is rather easily overcome depending upon which OS and security settings you have installed. Most can be stopped without any third party programs installed. If there is enough interest I will gladly post some specific instructions as to how to accomplish this but any damage/loss of data to your PC resides with you. The information imparted is USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! just something to think about and take care all!!!!!
most get in through your e-mail too. earthlink is my isp. they run symantec which is norton. now i've had mydoom and bunches more. so many can't remember the names. i've got the earthlink's noton virus protector. norton virus protector which came with my computer. norton firewall. xp firewall with sp2. and earthlink scans my email before it goes out and afterwards. don't like earthlink but they are good but the routers will do the trick mostly. that zone alarm is good!!!!!
1 - 12 of 12 Posts
Join the discussion
Join now to ask and comment!