| | Virus - Am I completely screwed??Page 2 of 2 (1, 2) | "I would LOVE to buy a refurbished computer for my kids! That's a great idea...I don't know much about them so do you think I would be able to get help on that site? They are too young to buy a new one for them"
well the hardware being talked about is mostly up to date, refurbished really means they sent it back and it's been tested and put in a new box, might be missing accessories. they have some low cost prebuilt systems, but they mostly deal in parts. the prebuilt systems will likely offer more per dollar than you can find in any store and might not be the top of the line but you are getting a 100% new computer even if it is labled as openbox or refurb. it would not only make a cost effective system for your kids but could also make a good computer for yourself.
im sure people on here could interpret the specs and guide you to a good purchase. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 6/30/2012 7:58:02 PM | Hi grace
avast antivirus is easy enough to install and use is free also --it removes stuff before windows loads,failing that i would ask for remote assistance from some1 who knows what they doing. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 6/30/2012 9:21:16 PM | | linux is not secure lol Go mac if you want secure. You can still have viruses on mac but you will be the carrier not the infected one :p. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/1/2012 11:12:22 PM | there is nothing about a mac that makes it more secure than other posix systems. as nice as osx is, it's not magical, it's just bsd with a lame interface pasted over top of it. if im gonna run a terminal interface i'd rather use something that offers free software and the ability to upgrade hardware as i go rather than being forced to buy a whole system at top dollar and doing an annoying file transfer.
linux and bsd run on the majority of pc hardware so it's a matter of burning a cd and about an hour to start using it on your existing computer without losing your windows files since you can dual boot and still read the windows file system from inside linux. so push your steve jobs religion elsewhere, i'm not really interested in arguing with apple fanboys. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/2/2012 9:52:39 AM | As a computer professional. First Trojans I don't care are the bain of hell.
I would get your data off, and simply do a restore.
Here is why. Trojan often infect sector 0 - 1 of the hard-drive of the boot sector. OK, what does that mean, well all computers have hard-drives and to load your OS and all your software the BOOT sector contains a serious of information blocks that tell the computer where to load the operating system.
OK, a good Trojan does some cool, it put a small tag program into the boot sector to load the virus first ALL the time no matter what you do. Sometime a anti-virus program can find the program, but cleaning the virus off the boot sector is much more complicated.
I do not mess with that step. Grab the data, and restore the system. After you remove the boot partition.
Time ...yep it sucks no doubt, but you want it to go away or just keep popping up. After 20 years of BS, I don't mess around with Trojans. I kill them and rebuild clean.
As far as data. Well, your personal documents should be fine. As far as your cookies, yea dump them reset your passwords and live with it. In short never store your passwords on your computer just bad habit, that is when a it ask to store your password the answer should be NO.
Now, listen please plenty of malware site that popup and request to scan your system. THEY are infecting your computer at this moment. SHUTDOWN, UNPLUG immediately to stop this. Then clean the garbage, and do a chkdsk before continuing your computer day.
20 years and Trojans haven't protected the computer system yet. Yes, get a Trojan think rebuild for safety reason.
Chow | |
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deltch
| | Joined: 6/28/2012
Msg: 31 | |
| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/7/2012 2:55:34 AM | | I used to deal with fake security programs that infected school computers back when I was working at my old High School. The best way to go about this is to go to your start menu, click "Run", and type in "msconfig" in the textbox and hit enter. This will bring up the System Config, you'll want to check your startup programs for anything that looks suspicious or looks like something you've never installed on your computer before but keep a look out on the file path of that particular program to see if it may be in your Windows or System32 folder. If you think the virus may be in that folder then be careful about disabling anything from Windows or System32 as it may render your computer unusable unless you reformat. (Reformatting will involve a complete reinstall of Windows as well as wiping the entire hard drive. You will definately get rid of the virus this way but at the cost of everything on the hard drive unless you transfer it to a flashdrive or external hard drive) | |
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deltch
| | Joined: 6/28/2012
Msg: 32 | |
| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/7/2012 2:59:21 AM | Also, to the guy who's saying to go Mac:
http://macscan.securemac.com/spyware-list/
Just a few examples of spyware. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/7/2012 11:14:29 PM | ^^^ :)
yeah no system is impervious to malware. while posix type os's are generally less prone to attacks it's due to fewer user, virus programmers want to get the most from there efforts, if it's information gathering they want to gather it from the most people, if it's just caos and whatever they want to do the most damage. mac, bsd and linux users being the minority get the least attention. there are other levels of security in posix systems with file permission and requiring root user passwords for most stuff that could damage the computer, microsoft has also implimented similar steps in windows 7. while my linux installs don't allow the executable tag on downloads and it must be set by the user windows has those "do you want this program to make changes to your computer" popups. no os is superior they all have perks and for most of the population windows is just fine. windows 7 is great as were nt4,2000,xp, server 2003, and server 2008. it just sux for all the people that got stuck with Vista and and before that me, 98 and 95.
well as far as msconfig goes, it's a good first step. you can hide microsoft services and kill everything else. but it won't help you if the virus has created registry keys that protect it from deletion. some of these fake security programs can't be removed without remote access to the registry through a boot disk or second install of windows or possibly installing the hd into another computer to do the cleaning, and like mentioned above some virus's are so sneaky they can hide in the boot sector... eeeek, but the mbr can be fixed with a windows install disk if needed. with enough know how and care you can usually clean a system without data loss but sometimes it's just easier to start over from scratch.. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/13/2012 11:24:11 AM | This was all a scam and there are clearly scammers on the forum.
people who 'remotely fix' computers are the scam companies.
you could start the pc in safe mode (often f5 when pc starts will get you the menu) and then use the restore point.
there are other ways but it requires a bit of nous
This is NOT a virus
you were NOT calling microsoft support
I would rather people go to pc world and spend £30 sorting it but if i knew someone id do it for a cup of tea and a mcdonalds | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/13/2012 1:29:13 PM | I'm no geek, but I use ccCleaner, spybot and Avast - seems to work for me...
I bought an ex-office 'refurbished' Dell for my shop (from eBay) and it took five complete scans & reboots to get the thing clean & running properly.
I most certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone who wasn't fairly confident with basic PC stuff went anywhere near a second-hand machine, you never know what's lurking on preowned/used hard drives...........
Edit - There is currently a scam doing the rounds where 'Microsoft Support' phone to tell you that you have malware on your system and offer to talk you through fixing it - just suggest they send you an eMail (don't give them your eMail, they ought to know it if they are genuine) and hang up. | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/15/2012 5:33:33 AM | spybot and common sense are indeed the best way to combat.
why would people assume microsoft picks out one pc in 300million to fix? odd =) | |
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| Virus - Am I completely screwed??
Posted: 7/23/2012 9:38:48 PM | | This is probably one of the worst viruses you can get. They require you to clean your computer thoroughly. I'm not going to list the detailed steps on fixing this issue but, for future reference install Ad-Blocker Plus extension on your web browser and pop-up blocker does wonders also. These viruses are embedded into ads in websites most of the time the web site owners don't realize they are in there. | |
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