STORM2K

What was your worst virus or spyware infection? Usually when you get a virus (or a trojan), it comes with spyware and adware. It may also contain those annoying advertising trojans.

The worst for me was way back in May. It was just like any normal day, until I got on AIM. Minutes after signing in, I get a message from someone who I never talk to. The message being, “hey check out this!” with “this” being hyperlinked. My first instinct was to investigate the URL. So I do so and copy and paste the URL into my address bar. With the html after “.com” being terminated, I can browse the main website efficiently for any clues about what I could be clicking on. The website was about space and astronomy. Also one more thing, before clicking the link, I asked the user what the hyperlink was and got no response. Thus, I did the stupid thing. I clicked the link and hit “run.” Ugh, what a bad choice that was. Immediately my AIM went berserk. I started getting pop ups from other users asking questions such as “why do you want me to click it?” Even ZolaOnAol talked to me. From there I discovered that this was a mass mailing virus that would get spread quickly. One person on my buddy list had already clicked the link, she got the same thing as me, and as much as I tried to help her, she refused. She simply told me that her father would not allow her to download anything. Now back on topic, I had to exit AIM because it was getting ridiculous-just way too much going on in a short period. Shortly after that, I began to feel the first effects of SpyBot and SpywareGuard getting to this. One after another, “an important registry entry has been changed.” During that, Norton began popping up with virus alert messages. I was also suffering from random pop ups every so often.

Remember, this was happening very fast. Maybe like a few minutes after the infection, I ran Ad-Aware and SpyBot. Almost immediately after starting it, Ad-Aware found over 30 infections. While it continued to scan, I searched the web for more information. I found some really awesome and helpful links. I had this spyware called the “Elite Toolbar” and what a nasty thing that was. The Elite Toolbar was the source for all of the pop ups that I had been getting. Even while being disconnected from the internet, I continued to receive random pop ups. This time saying the page could not be displayed. Back to browsing the internet, I found this tool called the “Elite Toolbar Remover” or something like that. Whatever it was called, it sure was very helpful. It safely removed it, in safe mode I believe. While that may have been gone and things were much better, I still had the virus or at least small fragments of it. For a few days, I had this other nasty thing called “NewDotNet.” I had to delete it manually with HijackThis and from deep in the registry. After that mess was gone, the future looked much brighter for me. I even tempted myself to uninstall AIM, but I never did.

I also tried System Restore, but unfortunately the virus had corrupted it.

Now it’s like what, over six months later? Well it happened again today. I have another annoying thing that keeps popping up whenever I open Internet Explorer. Winfixer is the name, and death currently isn’t the game.

Here are a few images of the remnants of the virus in my Norton Protected Recycle Bin, taken weeks after the event.







Those files would never disappear.

Strange....I haven't had a horrible infection on the comp., but I do have a thing popping up all the time now. For the last week or so, at least once a day, I get a pop up saying that the system is trying to install Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, but it can't because the SR-1 can't be found and I need to insert the disk. Well, thing is, I have Office XP and that disk. I inserted it, but nothing happened with the popup. I've run the virus scans, etc. but have no idea what's wrong....

So far I have never had a virus infection since I got this computer. I keep virus program updated everyday and run a scan every other day.

Defintely back in June when I believe I had a hacker as well. My dad had to flip the power breaker off because the A/C had blown a fuse the night before(and in June in Alabama you have to fix that immediately ) and when the computer restarted, there were programs I had not installed on the computer(Party Poker and some other kind of game). I deleted them... an hour later, they came back. Then when IE opened, popups everywhere. I had so many it locked up the computer twice, I got a pop-up blocker and got it under control(although I was still getting some) and then that evening about 6pm I was sitting here typing and I could see someone else typing(the address bar suddenly drops down with sites that start with the same letter as whoever is typing, but I couldn't actually see what they were doing), and then on Notepad it was typing stuff for me. It was gone after 10 minutes and didn't bother me again til the next evening, and once again, that encounter was brief, but really worrisome. The deleted programs continued to pop up on the desktop, within a half hour of deleting them, they were back again. This wasn't really a big problem(it didn't cause me to not be able to do things), it was just a major annoyance. Finally after about 2 weeks, everything was gone.

Never again. I still am baffled as to how it got installed in the first place. Before the power flicker, there had been no problems AT ALL.

Oh and right up with that would be after a computer crash when that lsass worm got into my computer. That was the first virus that I know of that I got. The computer would start up, and within 30 seconds, a warning window would come up saying "the computer will shut down in 60 seconds" and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Getting rid of that junk was a real pain.

As you all should know by now, I've always had problems with my computer. But the biggest worm was probably the one where the application lsess.exe got into my computer. It didn't harm me but it was sure hard to start my computer, because my puter only started after I deleted lsess.exe from my processes (Task Manager). Then if I restarted it of course lsess.exe came back and I had to delete it again. The part about deleting it is that the process lsess.exe kept jumping when I clicked on it - from the top process to the bottom to the middle, so my reflexes had to be fast. Also there was this thing called se.exe which got into my puter and for some reason these icons/programs got into my computer, such as "Play Poker Now!", and there were some others. Plus everytime I started my computer these new websites and folders were added into my Favorites folder. And also there was this thing called "Bargain Buddy" which somehow got installed onto my computer (don't know how) and really made IE slow. Fortunately I uninstalled it on the same day it was installed.

These viruses all entered my computer on the same day - Friday, August 13, 2004. Date sound familiar? It was the day Charley made landfall. I was browsing, looking for webcams from western Florida, when all of these Norton Antivirus stuff popped out. Being as naive as I was, I click "allow entry" for each one - and KABOOM everything came in. Talk about unlucky Friday the 13th. Of course I couldn't really track Charley anymore as my puter started performing real slow.

These are just some of the ones. Of course I have the clicking on my computer, the sudden flush of my C Drive and the "disk checks" that suddenly pop up whenever I start my computer now. But interestingly despite all this my files still are mostly intact (expect for a few Favorites and a few pics from Super Typhoon Chaba and Typhoon Aere last year).

I used to have Norton and IMO I dont think they are very good........It seems like they always caught a virus after it was to late.............so now I use AVG and it catches a virus as soon as it get into my computer.........they have free trials .......which i used for a while then I just went ahead and bought it for 2 years...the site is grisoft.com if anyone wants to try it....

The one that made my computer crash and burn last year before getting this computer.

who AVG?