Computer Malware

[Lucky]

Although my computer problems yesterday seemed to have righted themselves, later in the evening the bf had a crash so severe that I had seen nothing like it before. His whole hard drive appears to have been wiped out.

The antivirus scan said there was a trojan horse, but no ideas were provided on how to remove it. A screen popped up saying that he needed to do a system scan, which, when done, claimed that it fixed several items but not others. Then it wanted $75 for a program to fix the problems. That's when I got suspicious.

And, it appears, rightly so. Today's LA Times has an article on malware that did this very thing:

Computer virus warning -- The Federal Trade Commission has started mailing refunds to 300,000 consumers who were victims of a scam in which they were tricked into buying unnecessary software to remove nonexistent viruses and spyware from their computers. The perpetrators of the scheme caused ads to appear on victims’ computers, informing them that a “system scan” had detected viruses and other threats that needed to be removed immediately. In December 2008 the FTC obtained a court order putting a halt to the scheme. The FTC alleged that the defendants conned more than 1 million consumers into buying software products such as Winfixer, Drive Cleaner and Antivirus XP to remove the malware the bogus scans had supposedly detected. Consumers who believe they are entitled to a refund or have questions may call the settlement administrator toll free at 1-877-853-3541 or visit www.FTC.gov/refunds for more information.

Well, good enough for them, but the computer that bf uses still appears to have no usable hard drive left. His list of programs is blank. We ran spybot search and destroy, but it found nothing. Running it on my computer found 59 spy programs, but then, I have files on my hard drive.

So, it appears that we have to hire someone to see if the computer is repairable. It will be a bitch to have to find all of those lost files for a new computer.

(BTW, when the crash occurred, the bf was @ muscleservice.com)

[RA1]

There is a company in MEM that will analyze this problem for $29 and then fix it or download whatever is salvagable from your hard drive for a modest fee. I realize it does not help you that this company requires the computer in their hands but the point is there should be someone relatively inexpensive near you who can resolve this problem, more or less, to your satisfaction.

I claim no computer expertise and there are those who post hereon that do and perhaps they have a better solution. But, the folks here have saved my bacon more than once and at a reasonable price.

Best regards,

RA1

[Lucky]

And, speaking of computer crap, is your junk mail receiving daily emails from Canadian-Pharmacy, with an ad for discounts om ED drugs? I wrote Hotmail about this, but they did not respond. If you block the sender, they just use a different email address each day. I suspect they are botnets set up on various unsuspecting computers. As far as I can tell, Hotmail does not allow you to use a filter to block ads with certain words, say, such as Canadian! But I do picture every Canadian man walking round with a perpetual hard on.

[RA1]

Of course, receive that and other junk all the time.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Seconding RA1's advice, some three years ago I had an HP laptop suffer a physical disk crash. Not caused by malware, so who knows if this is applicable. But my point is to report the GeekSquad at the local Best Buy did a great job of recovering all the data onto 5 CDs for something like $79, or maybe a little more. A real bargain, for my money. And within 24 hours, if memory serves.

Just one of many reasons Best Buy thrived as Circuit City died. (Needless dig at a chain I really couldn't stand.)

[Lucky]

RA1, I have yet to meet a compute repair person here who charges less than $50. Can I Fed Ex the computer to you?

[OneFinger]

It's probably too late to help you now, but I hope your bf had a recent backup of his computer. I use an external hard drive to do routine backup.

I also Carbonite as an on-line backup. For $60 / year they provide a great backup service with unlimited capacity.

Hope someone is able to recover the stuff on the computer.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I'm sorry Lucky for your computer problems. I hope you can get it fixed.

[Lucky]

We fixed a lot of it, enough to get him back up and running. I have no doubt that the virus was the same as the one discussed in my first post. One that was holding you up for $75.

Yet I do not have the computer knowledge to determine what, if any, permanent damage was done to the hard drive.

As for backing up files, we have the San Disc, which is apparently full, and signed up for Dropbox, but don't know how to use it. Part of the problem is it does seem that many files were stripped by the virus, and someone smarter than me will have to find out what.

[TampaYankee]

We fixed a lot of it, enough to get him back up and running. I have no doubt that the virus was the same as the one discussed in my first post. One that was holding you up for $75.

Yet I do not have the computer knowledge to determine what, if any, permanent damage was done to the hard drive.

As for backing up files, we have the San Disc, which is apparently full, and signed up for Dropbox, but don't know how to use it. Part of the problem is it does seem that many files were stripped by the virus, and someone smarter than me will have to find out what.

If you got it up and running then I recommend that you get a copy of avast! Free Antivirus from downloads.com. It has a boot scan option that scans the computer HD before windows starts and unwanted processes presumably start up too. It has found a number of planted bugs on my computers over the years. I always like to do a boot scan before I flush any files that are not already confirmed to be infected. I'm sure a boot scan is not unique to avast, but it is a very popular, high rated, free AV app. A boot scan will probably give you the best view of the shape of your system short of bringing in a real person.

As for this trapware that you encountered, I've runs across examples of that over the last several years. Once I sort of panicked and almost bit on the perform a scan ruse. Then I thought: this isn't my app telling me this. I didn't recognize it so I backed off and did a scan with my own installed app. I came up clean.

That episode also taught me to stay away from any free scan offers, even from well-known 'safe' software companies. I do not put it past any marketing arm of a Corp. to plant harmless bugs on your system to encourage you to buy their product. These free scans always find something -- usually several -- and never remove all of them unless you buy the full app. I don't trust them. If they really wanted to sell me on their product they'd show me how well it really worked cleaning my machine, not just promise and leave me with a feeling of uncertainty. I make my software choices after reading third-party unbiased reviews, not company marketing ploys.

[Lucky]

It was the AVG boot scan that quarantined the trojan horse. But, I did download Avast! and am scanning now. So far they have found one infected file.

[Guest gcursor]

Off the topic...

Awww...how adorable your new avatar is Hi! It's REALLY cute!

gcursor

I'm sorry Lucky for your computer problems. I hope you can get it fixed.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Thanks Gcursor. I love it too. Good to see you here again.

[Lucky]

gcursor, there is a whole thread devoted to hitoallusa and his new avatar. Why not post your comment there?

As for Avast! and the boot scan, it finds numerous files it calls decompression bombs. That sounds scary. But, researching on my computer, it seems that they are mostly compressed files that are harmless at worst and needed at best. This is not fun.

[Guest EXPAT]

I'll repeat something I've said before. Get an Apple. I've had my apple environment for 3 years and have not had one issue at all. It's worth the investment as the environment is soooo superior to a Microsoft environment.

[Lucky]

EXPAT, that is no doubt excellent advice. If I could just stop going to Rio, I might be able to afford it!

[AdamSmith]

I'll repeat something I've said before. Get an Apple. I've had my apple environment for 3 years and have not had one issue at all. It's worth the investment as the environment is soooo superior to a Microsoft environment.

Could not agree more. I likewise, three years ago -- after wrestling mightily with a hateful MS Vista system -- went to MacBook Pro. Have not had one single solitary problem with malware incursions, system or application software upgrades (just asks "Do you want to?", then if you say yes, it happens -- no mystifying 20-questions folderol), or anything else.

As some journalist recently said, Jobs and his crew took the infuriating and made it routine. Or, as another commentator quipped, how many consumers buy a washing machine, wanting the option to upgrade to a more powerful motor?

[Guest gcursor]

for 2 reasons Lucky:

1. because I didn't think we were as "uptight" on this board and would cry because somebody posted something about somebody's new avi in a different thread. I really have to learn to stop posting on this board

2. because I knew that you would say something about it as you always do. mission accomplished.

gcursor

gcursor, there is a whole thread devoted to hitoallusa and his new avatar. Why not post your comment there?

As for Avast! and the boot scan, it finds numerous files it calls decompression bombs. That sounds scary. But, researching on my computer, it seems that they are mostly compressed files that are harmless at worst and needed at best. This is not fun.

[BiBottomBoy]

I like all your avatars and I think bitching about avatar compliments is about as bitchy queeny as you can get.

[Lucky]

No one is bitching about avatars. People often like to see their threads remain on topic, and why shouldn't they? Granted, it doesn't always happen, and in the scheme of things, it is not a big problem.

But it is easy to maintain a certain etiquette in the forum. Respect the thread that someone else starts and you have nothing to contribute to.

If you are an occasional poster, take a look at what is happening in the forum before you post. If you did, you might see that your friend is being complimented in a separate thread, and you might then put your compliment where it belongs, and is most likely to be seen by your friend. Simple, huh?

No feathers get ruffled, the friend gets his compliment, and your return to the forum flows easily into the mix.

What's so wrong, or bitchy, about expecting some respect?

[BiBottomBoy]

But... what if it's malware that's making us all compliment his avatar...

[Guest gcursor]

Normally I might agree with some of what you said Lucky but this was just one post in a topic.. I had popped in on the forum and browsed a couple of topics and picked one or two to talk on. I am sorry that I didn't have time to peruse all 30 topics that were open at the time to determine where my comment best fit in during that time but I didn't think anybody would be watching that closely (again..except you). Now if we had all descended on this topic and made mention about how all these avis were great then I think you'd have a great reason to complain. As iti is, you are complaining about one small comment in one thread. Next time I post, I will make sure to send the comment to you personally so that we can determine where we can both stuff the comment that I will be making next time.

thanks for making this such a fun experience as always,

Gcursor

No one is bitching about avatars. People often like to see their threads remain on topic, and why shouldn't they? Granted, it doesn't always happen, and in the scheme of things, it is not a big problem.

But it is easy to maintain a certain etiquette in the forum. Respect the thread that someone else starts and you have nothing to contribute to.

If you are an occasional poster, take a look at what is happening in the forum before you post. If you did, you might see that your friend is being complimented in a separate thread, and you might then put your compliment where it belongs, and is most likely to be seen by your friend. Simple, huh?

No feathers get ruffled, the friend gets his compliment, and your return to the forum flows easily into the mix.

What's so wrong, or bitchy, about expecting some respect?

[BiBottomBoy]

Catfight!