Your last infection ?

The last infection any of my systems had was a few years ago, and it was just a false positive.

 

2003, the dreaded MS Blaster mere moments after a fresh install of XP, pre SP1 and before I had a router.

 

Hi gambla,

The last time was in June of 2006 - that's when I was running WinXP Pro SP2 (also paying for a firewall/AV and a runtime monitor) and it is also when I started using a Linux Live CD. Arguably better in security, since no disks are mounted and when I turn power off, the contents of RAM get wiped. If I want to save something to disk, I disable the network with one click, run a script to mount the disk and do the save, then re-enable the network connection after the disk is dismounted.

Haven't been infected since. Now, everything is free with Linux. It's really nice to have a $0.00 cost for the security/software I use on my desktop.

-- Tom

 

Me neither, it was some time ago.

 

ive only received one and it was one that stole my mouse, changed all my passwords about 4 years ago. Mcafee looked at it and said come on in, hence why i will never use it again. My family on the other hand seems to get hardcore viruses every other day ugh but atleast i make lots fixing them lol.

 

Never had one in over 16 years online...

 

The last one was shortly before finding and joining Wilders.
Back when I thought the only defense was a few FW's/AV's out there, boy was I wrong.

 

I think I've misunderstood the title of this thread. My post #16 was about a threat of infection which has been positively dealt with by my security system. My machines have never been infected since I joined Wilders in 2005, and by the look of it most Wilders members seem to have had the same experience.

I'm so confident about my recovering measures that I really don't care much how destructive malware can be to my system. The real challenge nowadays is how to avoid effectively any personal data theft, passwords, credit cards numbers etc. which can be done quickly and quietly in the background if one is not alert.

 

My PC is clean for 6 years for sure (as long as I am registered here), but even before I remmeber infection only when I started using internet, a good old dial up connection.

 

Winter 2008. Believe it or not, I had had a dream the night before my PC showed symptoms; that dream was about my computer becoming infected.

I don't know what it was, first my IE would freeze up completely, then later my entire computer froze and I had to kill it. I ran a scan with AVG 8.5. During the scan it found an infection, labeled as Virus, but I didn't right down the name.

This infection though froze the scan, so I had to reboot, thinking it had removed the infection. I tried to run another scan, and it froze. From that day on my computer would freeze between 5-10 minutes after rebooting, even in safe mode.

Eventually I took it into a PC shop, hoping to find out what infection it was. They told me they had to format the drive, and that it had somehow physically ruined the drive, or it had crashed at the same time. They replaced it, reinstalled Windows with Avast!, and that's when I got into PC security.

This infection still haunts me; can anyone tell me what infection would be likely to cause a complete freeze after a matter of minutes, and that AVG would detect as a Virus rather than Worm, Trojan, etc?

 

No clue about the exact infection, but it's likely that the Virus label by AVG is correct.
It couldn't be a Trojan, because those don't have visible impacts on the computer (their purpose is to hide and spy).
Might be a Worm if it spreads through your network.
Viruses are destructive, self-replicating, and pretty much ruins your system.

 

Could have been about anything. I agree though that usually malware/spyware doesn't really cripple things so much as annoy you, or not even alert you (possibly the most dangerous kind). Worms/trojans/virsuses sound like the usual suspects to me in that case, but it is very hard to tell. Often when I work on a computer that has been infected or acting up like, that, it is many problems combined, not just one.

I have fixed my fair share of systems. I have built my fair share of systems. I guess you could say I have "been around the block" a time or two. I have never, ever, seen a virus kill a harddrive. I have seen other things kill a harddrive, and I have seen failing and dead harddrives, but never seen a virus kill one. I would (personally) highly suspect that you got "taken to the cleaners" on that transaction. Maybe not, but that is my gut feeling.

Most PC shops I have had interactions with don't make money by removing a virus, but rather make more money by formatting a drive. This has the nasty tendency to also cause ones data to go bye-bye too. I can't tell you how many times I have had novice users tell me they lost everything when taking it to the shop. I used to make a lot of money fixing peoples infections because I always kept thier data. I quit that because while I was making money, the time I spent doing it became more valuable to the kids my wife kept producing

Stories like this make me glad I know how to manage things for myself, and also make me glad I can offer that same service to those close to me, even if they don't listen and I do it a few times a year.

On the bright side, now that you have the drive to learn you may never experience that sort of thing again, and if you do, you will likely not have to be inconvenienced much nor shell out hard earned $$$ needlessly. Kudos for the resolve and drive to do something about it!

Sul.

 

It was around 2001 or 2002. It was from something I downloaded. I reinstalled Windows and was really careful with what I ran from then on.