Virusses!

Mike Thomas_2

After our network went down with viruses and the lost time and $1200, we bought a used computer for $300 and use it for all internet work. Let them boys play with the $300 one and leave all my business records alone!

leo g_13

finally back

the machine got infested with a real nasty last Friday the 20th. It took a week of work by the geek guys and a new momboard to get us up and going again.

New rules, no more IE for the kids for quite a while. NO more opening of attachments from those that love to send things along like a chain mail.

And man does it feel nice to back among friends!

Leo G

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lchmb

welcome back

Leo do you run Norton firewall? Another thing I do is run Panda scan and spy bot. Help keep's the &*^%$ out of your system. Both are free to use.

Constantin

Good point...

... I'd install a physical router between any computer and the internet. They're cheap, easy to install, and prevent unsolicited network connections from getting to your computer.

Disabling Javascript and requiring the use of FireFox should also increase the security a great deal.

However, the biggest thing is to drill it into your kids heads that downloading anything they want onto any machine in your network is a no-no. "Ground" them, if necessary. Otherwise, it's going to be a constant pain in your life.

Securing things like IM connections, etc. is a pain at best and common sense will usually trump any of the virus barriers. Giving them their own computer and making them responsible for cleaning it up themselves may open their eyes to the cost it incurs to be careless.

Switching them to a (to-date) less vulnerable platform like the Mac may be yet another plausible approach.

Edward A. (Ed) Carery

Virus problems.

> After our network went down with viruses and the

> lost time and $1200, we bought a used computer

> for $300 and use it for all internet work. Let

> them boys play with the $300 one and leave all my

> business records alone!

Edward A. (Ed) Carery

Virus problems.

> After our network went down with viruses and the

> lost time and $1200, we bought a used computer

> for $300 and use it for all internet work. Let

> them boys play with the $300 one and leave all my

> business records alone!

Edward A. (Ed) Carery

Virus problems.

I have a computer at my home that my kids NEVER get near. It is locked with a password, and turned OFF if I am not on it. I still got hit with viruses.

I just got over straightening out my computer from a virus that I got from a forward that I received from a “good friend” who said that he never sent it. It was a virus that his computer sent my computer on its own. His computer was infested and sent an e-mail out to everyone on his list. I opened it because it was from him.

Mc Afee scanned it before I opened it, and said it was virus free. Yea right!!!!!

It blew right by my (fully up to date) McAfee. I have the works, Firewall, Privacy Suite, Virus Scan, automatic updates, etc. The first thing it did was turn off my McAfee, and open the flood gates.

I have a local computer guy who is really a wizard. He makes house calls and does really exotic software work. I called him to repair the system. He suggested that before he comes over that I download “Ewido” from his web site. It is a deep cleaning malware type scan. It can be used free for two weeks, then you have to buy it, or it will no longer update.

The Ewido was incredible. It found about 16 malware type programs and cleaned them all out. McAfee did not find even one of them. I bought Ewido since, and have run it at least once a week. It does not replace McAfee, but runs parallel. I since have found and deleted two more malware programs that made it past McAfee. Ewido caught them so they did not dig in and cause problems.

The link to the computer guy is listed here: http://www.ask-dave.com/. I am near the Wilkes Barre PA area. Dave is in Kingston, which is very close. If you are in the area I highly recommend him.

His web site has several free downloads. Before I downloaded anything I researched it on the net. Ewido appears to be quite a niche company.

BTW, on a different thread they talked about dumping IE in favor of Firefox as a browser. Dave also recommended the same thing, and he has a link for that also on his web site.

Good luck with you computer. I can say I truly understand your frustration.

Edward A, (Ed) Carey

E.A. Carey HVAC


Shavertown, PA

Bob W._3

My billing computer is stand alone, not connected to anything but a printer. It will stay that way.

Constantin

I have a friend at a research company in the same shoes...

... each desk has two PCs. One for the outside world, one for the internal network. Never the two shall meet...

Steamhead (in transit)

No anti-malware program is perfect

these days you need more than one. I've found that the old-school "anti-virus" programs like McAfee or Norton don't do such a good job of picking up other types of malware.

I recently noticed my system was acting flaky. McAfee didn't pick up anything. So I ran HouseCall, the online scanner (http://housecall.trendmicro.com) and it found a "Java exploit". Cleared that, ran McAfee again and it found a variant of the Netsky worm! Apparently the Java exploit was hiding the worm, which didn't do any serious damage since I'm running Netscape instead of IE/OE.

Dumping Microsoft software is the best thing anyone can do- Bill Gates and his cronies have created a virus writer's nirvana. The only thing I'll use IE for anymore is Windows Update and HVACTV- c'mon Ric, you need to switch your platform to Firefox/Netscape.

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Larry Weingarten

Ed, thanks...

...for the tip on "Ewido". I installed it, ran it and found 751 bad things that Norton didn't notice! I'm already running Firefox and ZoneAlarm, but, 'twas a surprise.

Yours, Larry

Edward A. (Ed) Carery

Viruses

Glad to help Larry,

On a side note, my McAfee updates automatically and also runs automatically every night. It has found nothing.

I ran Ewido today and found 3 more that were not there last week.

Your 751, WOW. Your puter must have been slowed to a snails pace. I bet is back up to speed now. Probably worth doing a defragment after removing that much junk engrained into the programs.

Everyone tells me Firefox is the way to go. That is my next move. SOON

Regards,

Ed