Of Viruses and Hackers

[Thaliat Everwood]

I am not sure if it was a computer virus, a hacker, or some combination thereof, but I just spent about half an hour trying to log in to my account. I KNOW my log in was correct, but some how the account was not logging in. Then I tried logging in to my e-mail. No problem...at least not until I logged out to get in to the email for this account. Suddenly I could not even connect to my email service.
So, I had a huge WTF moment, and decided to run a virus scan. Norton pulled something off my computer, and suddenly I could log in again. I don't know who did this...it wasn't the person I would normally suspect, this was way too complex for her to pull off (gotta be smart for this). So I just wanted to pass along the warning. I'm not sure how to look up the name of the virus/trojan/whatever or I'd let you know so you could watch for it. It is just coming up as Trojan Cookie on my resolved issues list. It had a bunch of "my" applications trying to access the Internet all at once. Damn.
Anyway it seems to be fixed now, but keep your eyes open so your computers don't get messed up like mine was.

Discuss:
~Virus/trojan/whatever headaches
~fixes
~Why Thal needs to hurry up and get that new laptop before this '03 machine gets attacked...again
~celeb websites/images loaded with viruses (damn it)
~Why virus/trojan makers/hackers are such asses
~whatever  

[Jafthasleftthebuilding]

I think it would have to do with the quality of your defense and what you download.  

[AlcoholicPancake]

Jaft

I think it would have to do with the quality of your defense and what you download.

Not always... You can get viruses by just letting your computer Idle at times. Just because you're not doing anything online, it doesn't mean you're safe.. You have open ports on your computer where harmful things/people can get in regardless of what you download.

For protection of my computer, I use Avira Anti-virus and Malwarebytes anti-malware scanner. I have them both scan once a day, and if they pick up any infections after the scan while I'm going about my business, I stop what I'm doing to have them scan again. I also scan EVERYTHING I download with both of those scanners before I consider opening it.

I've been having that same problem with my gmail account though... The password when from my normal e-mail password, to a completely different one, and I'm not sure if I changed it while drunk, or if it changed itself, but I know no one accessed it, as I've never had a keylogger on my computer, nor does anyone know what it could be.  

[Taeryyn]

I was browsing Gaia a couple of months ago, when all of a sudden the only thing on my screen was the Windows XP Security Centre. Supposedly I had been infected with all kinds of malware and needed to remove the infections immediately.

Which was interesting, since I don't have Windows. :3 I had some lulz, clicked my "security centre" away, did a scan with my actual security software and added no-script to Firefox. Good times.

My system is not as secure as it could be; I do have Avast! for anything I download or send to anyone else, and I change all my passwords frequently (which is a pain in the a**, but it's a habit I got into at work). But in general, I feel fairly safe. Most of my actual browsing is done at work. x3

Granted, I've had friends who were absolutely paranoid when it came to security, and whose computers STILL got infected. I've always been more worried about like...keyloggers than anything else. It's one thing to lose stuff from your computer, but it's another thing entirely to have your identity ******** with. >.<  

[Thaliat Everwood]

Ironically the only things I've been downloading (intentionally) art art submissions for my current contest. But I do let my computer idle a bit (bad, I know). I need to do a full scan this weekend to be safe.

I did back up my entire computer with one of those portable hard drives, so I am not too worried about losing files. But I'd become vicious if some a**-wipe decided to muck about with my identity. Grr.

When I get my laptop, this one is going off line only so I can just use it for art and writing. No more virus concerns...on this machine.  

[Kalstolyn]

Kals is questing again!

Oh man that reminds me of the time when I installed Windows 2000 on my clunky old computer (which was built from other people's discards, a true frankenputer, it ran win98se like a dream!). I needed to get online in order to download AVG (which didn't suck back then!) so I installed the drivers for my wireless card. In the 5 minutes it took for my download to complete, I suddenly had about 10 browser hijacks, a handful of porn dialers, and three different rogue antimalware applications. I did not click on a single thing to get them -- they just came to me through my landlord's unencrypted wireless internet connection. I'm sure if I had thought to turn on windows firewall before going online, it would have been fine.

Check sig for details!

 

[AlcoholicPancake]

Kalstolyn

Kals is questing again!

Oh man that reminds me of the time when I installed Windows 2000 on my clunky old computer (which was built from other people's discards, a true frankenputer, it ran win98se like a dream!). I needed to get online in order to download AVG (which didn't suck back then!) so I installed the drivers for my wireless card. In the 5 minutes it took for my download to complete, I suddenly had about 10 browser hijacks, a handful of porn dialers, and three different rogue antimalware applications. I did not click on a single thing to get them -- they just came to me through my landlord's unencrypted wireless internet connection. I'm sure if I had thought to turn on windows firewall before going online, it would have been fine.

Check sig for details!

Probably not. On there was probably a Security Center Disabler. It would have shut down the firewall and you still would have gotten infected.

On the off chance I ever get anything on my system, I just reboot in safemode and run VundoFix and ComboFix, along with a CLS instance of Malwarebytes and Avira. Cleans everything off 100% and I'm running clean again biggrin  

[Kalstolyn]

Windows firewall is off by default in Win 2k, you have to manually turn it on. I had forgotten.

The thing that cracked me up about the whole situation was that I had been running win98se without any firewall, and only running spybot and adaware scans about every other week, on that same wireless connection and I NEVER had any problems.