My first computer virus!

“For reasons I don't understand (since we've never emailed) Town Dawg took my computer virus virginity! Did anyone else from here receive a virus that looked like an email from TD? I always wondered what would happen, but my Norton anti-virus seemed to do the job well. Gave me an early morning scare though!”

“My Norton caught a virus trying to get to my computer yesterday too.
Norton stopped it!! HA!!!!!”

“There is a new virus called Badtrans that was busy sending trojans in emails over the weekend. Supposedly you don't have to open the email, just look at it to allow the trojan to operate. I have McAfee Online. How would you know if your antivirus software protects you from an email that you don't even have to open to get infected?”

“I wondered what that email was about! No message, just "the server isn't available check your internet connection". Norton hasn't kicked in yet. Must not of had a virus attached to mine. Weird!”

“I killed it last night about mignight.. my apologies to everyone.

MY COMPUTER HAD BEEN INFECTED WITH THE Badtrans-B VIRUS AND WAS EMAILING THE
VIRUS TO PEOPLE AT RANDOM! See below

Please stay off the internet until you get this cleaned up! You might check
the web site:

http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_BADTRANS
.B

for an explanation of the infection and procedures for removing it.”

“I don't think anyone thought you did it on purpose TD. No harm no foul. I guess I got lucky.”

“naw.. I figured that..

but I wanted to let everyone know.. that this WORM is burying the network.. It's a nasty lil #&%!$.

I killed it last night. Hopefully I won't get it again..

*lol*

I got mine from Blue Ridge Mountain Sports!”

“TD, thanks for the heads up on this. I will make sure I stamp this out when I check my mail.”

“Norton is the best! Caught and quarantined the sucker last night before it did any damage.”

“No problems here. I update Norton every Monday, but fortunately I did not receive any infected email.”

“y'all got 'puter herpes! LOL!!!!”

“If you have Norton be sure to enable automatic update. Updates while you're online without having to prompt it.”

“Automatic updating is da bomb!”

“You can get sent a virus infected message by just being on a cc: list in a message in someone's Outlook Express email. That is how they can spread so fast.”

“W32.Badtrans.B@mm info

Includes removal manual removal instructions for Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000.

Clever...uses kernel32.exe which is not a valid file necessary for operation of any of those operating systems. kernel32.dll is a valid entry and should not be renamed or deleted...unless you do not want to boot your system again without reinstalling the OS.”

“I was able to kill mine using the housecall.antivirus.com thingie..

I tell ya.. I am so tired of them tho.. I have had more WORMs, TROJANs and VIRUSes this past six months than I have in my life.

(ya ya.. i know.. here comes the SPAM)”

“Ramaspamadingdong...

They have medications for that kind of thing, TD.”

“well, at least you can't tell by looking.. you have to have a check up before you find out.. unless you wait out the incubation period.

most of the time, I have left town by then.”

“Oh no, please don't think that I thought it was puposefully done, Town Dawg. I don't.

I always thought that viruses only used email address lists, so I was surprised to have it come from a bulletin board connection.

Reading some of the above posts, I'm feeling lucky to not have to do anything more than hit a button in response to my Norton warning. Best $3 I ever spent!”

“I once got The code red bug, very nasty and almost got the nimda. Had to reformat on the first one, Norton caught the second.”

“Geez TownDawg, what are you doing with that computer? Maybe if you were a little more selective...”

“I have only had my PC for 6 months now.

OK, I admit it I was browsing the web for shot of Ania Zalewski, I first saw her in a buddies playboy mag, but I only read the articles.

Anyway, I open a site and blam blam blam..... all this crap strated to pile in on PC. There where so many phucking pop-ups I could not keep up.....
Then my Norton antivirus (has latest updates) starts Quarantining stuff (one virus was called "trojan horse"... I get 12 more virus' quarantined. So I go to the norton and delete them.... I still get all these pops ups and my browser will automatically switch to a p0rn site or s3x adds and wierd cr@p.
I also got this add for spy ware and it was a full screen and would not allow me to get rid of it... i finally click on properties and went to where it was and deleted it.. So I did another scan and quarantine 3 more virus' and deleted them. OK now I figure I doing ok. So I reboot and now my PC (I have Time Warner road Runner) is going wicked slow. I do another scan. which took literly 400 minutes to scan 50,000 files, zero virus' found....WTF!
I try to go online and everything is freezing up and I can only get restarted by killing the PC with the button on the tower. So i go do a search for files downloaded on the date it started.... I looked for anything wierd and deleted it.... So now yesterday it seem to be working fine. I go into webshots and was working on a homepage and right in the middle of what i was doing the explorer switches over to some s3x sight and the tools section has set my homepage default to slotch.com. Also Everytime I open the explorer it is set to "about.blank" WTF!
Now it it is adding s3x/p0rn icons to my mine screen. I added Panic ware pop up blocker to no avail.
I also get these "wildtangent" downloads, and I get these "microsoft reports" asking to "send Report" WTF!
This is driving me nutz!
Any ideas?
any help would be greatly appreciated....
thanks
ps...
maybe something got ahold of IP addy?”

“You have a lot going on there.

It sounds like you've gotten some bad spyware/adware. You need to find the free downloads of AdAware and Spybot, install them, and run them on your computer. That will clear up most of your problems.

Also, you may need to turn off system update if you don't already have it turned off so Norton can eliminate the problem viruses from your computer.

As far as the "microsoft reports", it may mean that you need to download a Windows update for your computer to help you plug a hole. Do they say anything abut LSASS.exe?”

“Get something called SpywareGuard also. It will stop alot of the stuff from even getting on your computer in the first place. It also will not allow your homepage to be reset without you knowing it.”

“Do you think the spy ware got any of my info. I never have checked the "save" the names & passwords for my logins to ebay, yahoo, paypal, etc....and I always goto the "tools" and delete cookies, internet files and history daily..

Thanks a million again

Not sure on the LSASS.exe I could do a search for it when I get home.

I did a scan last night and made sure I logged off Time warner, and sure as h#ll this morning there was pop ups and new icons...

So before I left for work I disconnected the Road Runner Lines and did a Scan and let it run today.

When I get home I will try to find that LSASS.exe file before I re-connect the RoadRunner lines”

“Do you have a firewall? You might also want to go to annoyances.org and check the message boards. They will tell you the good spyware stuff to get. I don't know about the password stuff. It seems to me that most spyware just wants to hijack your homepage or place annoying stuff on your computer. Occasionally you'll get one that dials long distance numbers in Romania or something, but I don't know how that works with high-speed connections.”

“LSASS.exe is a part of the Windows operating systems, so don't delete it. However, if you're running XP, there is an update for LSASS.exe to help block the Sasser worm. Visit microsoft.com, go to the updates page, and see what updates you need, and install them.”

“I never quite understood the premise behind spyware. Isn't most of it a marketing thing? It’s a stupid tactic. I would never buy anything from a company that annoys the hell out of me with this sh*t.”

“Sometimes those spyware/adware programs will download malicious stuff, like keystroke loggers. So until you're sure you've gotten everything off, don't key in your credit card numbers or sensitive passwords.

LZ, like all advertising, it's all in the margins. Direct mail pays off if only 3% of the idiots getting something in their mailbox respond to it. With electronic stuff, the margins are even lower because it's so cheap in comparison. But I believe that most of the really nasty stuff is just used to help tunnel into the system for whatever nefarious purposes the writer had in mind.”

“I have Norton anti virus but I dont think it has a firewall.
I had the Mcafee security stuff for a trial offer that came with Dell I bought, but it expired... I have the norton antivirus, I thought was the same thing? Maybe I should sign up for the macfee again and just pay the $50...???”

“Not sure what you got exactly but I would definitely recommend getting a firewall...especially if as I\'m assuming you have a DSL or cable modem...Zone Alarm has a pretty good one, you can DL a free version on their website www.zonealarm.com”

“Roadrunner has a free firewall you can download, also anti virus if you need it. The software is from computer associates.”

“Thank You very much for the info.

I will check the Road Runner deal when I get home tonight.

I hope I can get it going again, before I smash it with the sledge hammer!”

“My home monitor frozed yesterday night. I had just downloaded Media Player to view some news clips. After viewing the clips and continue surfing the web...suddenly the screen froze...I had to reset the computer...after that the screen was blank with only a thin line on the bottom of the screen.

Maybe my monitor burned....any advice out there?”

“Buy another?”

“All throughout the boot cycle, that's all you can see?”

“yup, those identity thefts on computers are sure going up. I just got a pop-up- rewrite homepage-spyware- virus last night at 2a.m. They want me to buy their ****ing sypware sh't online- the nerve........... I'm piss'd cuz I'm stuck at work and can't fix the problem until I get home- just hope the wife doesn't fall for that crap- I told her not to- but you know- us women- just can't tell 'em anything. Which sypware are they trying to sell you? Maybe we can compare notes, and I'll make a complaint. It may be more widespread than we know if it happened at the same time.”

“Bitpusher, yep, that's all I see all through the boot cycle. Just a thin line at the bottom on a black screen. Help.”

“I think your monitor is toast. Time for a new one, I'm afraid.

So, out of curiosity, where are you posting from now?”

“DL program from avast.com eliminated the dreaded trogan- 10 gig is a lot to backup, I'm so glad I didn't have to.”

“Bit, thanks. I'm posting from work now. We have a few old monitors lying around...I'll borrow one and plug it in at home to see if it works. If it doesn't work.....it could be my driver or some other hardware.”

“I'm thinking screen freezing and then going blank sounds like perhaps a bad video card or driver rather than a bad monitor.
I'd try the other monitor first though, that seems to be the easiest thing to eliminate from the list.
Could be driver... viri can do bad things to drivers.”

“Snafu dude welcome to the wonderfull world of cable and windows. Since your system is connected to the net 24/7 it is a prime target for every worm virus and hacker. Without a good firewall the situation under windows is hopeless. Windows can be cracked in less then thirty seconds and you will be attacked every fifteen minutes.

Ok first to fix the virus problems.

sorry to say it but reload is most likely. Dont bother untill you have a decent firewall in place and understand very well how it works. set the rule-set up very strict and relax them if they get in the way.

If your still on win 98 or older fergetaboutit - there is no way to secure your system even with a firewall.

So far xp seems to be able to slow things down a bit. with a firewall you might be able to fend the attacks off for a while.

one more bug you need to watch for. Boot sector virii. These little devils have gotten nasty since they have figured out how to mask it from most scanners by installing a virtual one so that any reads from the os turn up normal... If you get one of these you have a problem and a half to deal with. if your infection comes back very quickly then E-mail me and I will explain how to get rid of it if it is present...

lastly - use linux... it is almost immune to all this bs....”

“Mmmm, didn't consider that the video card might be bad. That could be as well.”

“Thanks dudes...
I seems to working Okay for now....
My Java wont work tried reloading it and I get a message...

also any where I try to log into a site it sez server is down? I know the server is not down due to I called sister and she was able to get in no problem.. WTF!

other then that it is working ok, for now..”

“When you say "log in" do you mean you're typing in a username and password to get into a site?

That would make me suspicious. Did you ever get Adaware and Spybot?”

“How come I have no sound on my computer!?”

“Oops..meant to say, too, that I have my speakers hooked up in the right place and the volume up all the way.”

“Do you have speakers?
Are they plugged in?”

“yeah my cousin added spybot for me... he said run it every week
I also have panic ware for pop ups
what about a firewall like Lum said? I have norton all updated but no firewall, does norton have a firewall?.....

The deal is when I got the bank web site, paypal, even webshots, I get the standard screen that sez site not available? But I know they are de to sister got in ok from her PC”