Last time hit by virus/worm/rootkit

I'm just curious: when was the last time you were hit by a virus or other serious malware, and what were you doing to get it (web surfing, downloading unknown stuff, opening unknown executables, e-mail attachment, etc.) ??


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Not to gloat or anything since i'm a long time researcher of these things, theres no virus or otherwise that can ever penetrate my XP Pro, at least anymore.

Windows 98SE, wmplayer used to get chopped and replaced by malware on a regular basis as well as those C:\ system drive droppers like command.com not to mention various slips into the Windows Folder then their dll's would add or change BHO's to redirect the browser.

Since XP, all those type of intrusions have fell flat, and that's mainly due to the increased efforts of security vendors everywhere culminating in the newest innovations known as HIPS, Virtual Systems, and Sandboxes, etc.

EASTER

 

Last week: ZLOB, surfing (and clicking )
But: I did on purpose

Gerard

 

Last time was an autorun.inf USB worm that was on a friends USB stick.
Because of that, lots of stuff changed on my security.

 

Last time 1999 from an instant message attachment.

 

Never in 28 years of using personal computers.

 

In addition, oddly enough on Windows 98 and not with a lick of knowhow, i regularly depended on AVG6 AV, SpyBot, Ad-Aware, and SpySweeper. Boy back then i thought i was well protected untill running AS scans that regularly picked up malware that scooted right past AVG without so much as a whimper. Even old Kerio 2.15 firewall notified of a virus/malware where AVG had completely missed it due to an "Outgoing Connection Attempt" alert that showed path & file name.

We've come a very long way since then thank goodness.

 

I have only had one piece of malware in all the time I have been useing computers. It was years ago when the blaster worm was making the rounds and I was doing a full format and restore and I forgot to disconnect the always on internet before booting up on the new install. The worm nailed the comp within seconds after the boot so I rerstarted in safe mode and ran a blaster worm cleaner I had on disc and got rid of it. And I was sure to install security apps before connecting the internet again

 

I have been online in various forms since the mid 80's and have never actually been hit by malware or viruses. I have encountered a few, maybe 3 or 4, that were immediately caught by my AV. The first few were back in my early p2p days when I used Norton, and were caught in transit. A few more from visiting crack sites in the distant past. Never ever from any random or daily browsing. Nowadays I just behave myself and don't have any encounters at all with any of it. Also using Linux at the moment, which renders it all moot anyway.

 

So, it sounds like most people have NOT had any -- or more than a very few -- problems with seriously bad code getting into their machines; and the ones that have know how it happened, could have easily avoided it.

Sound right?

Then, follow-up question: how many times has your anti-virus had to kick in to save your machine from getting infected?? Hundreds, dozens, few, none??


(Findings will be published in an upcoming five-star research report. )

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A year or two ago when I wasn't using AV (because I though I understood malware threats enough to not need one) and got infected by a usb auto run virus from an internet cafe.

 

Yesterday, Ewido anti spyware found 1 backdoor and Kaspersky found 2

 

How did you get them?


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Downloading programs

 

CWS Trojan 4 or 5 years ago. Drive by hijack.



snowbound

 

Which ones?? (All answers are strictly confidential, as you desire.)


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Drive-by hijack? From a website? A bad script??


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How do users know if they are infected or not ?
I have only two ways to know if I'm infected or not :
1. The infection causes visible effects, for instance my homepage is hijacked or my system harddisk is destroyed.
2. Running scanners that report infections, but I don't use any scanner and if I use them, they don't detect anything.
It's possible, I get infected somewhere in the day due to failures of my security softwares, but I usually don't know when the malware is a silent one.
I only know in theory, that no malware will survive on my system. Malware is dangerous, but I'm also dangerous.

 

I've always been concerned about computer safety and considered myself careful, but I too was once hit: In 1999 I had a virus / mail worm on my Win 98SE. Don't remember its name though.

At that time, I had just found out that I could access my Hotmail account with Outlook Express. After downloading the mails, I wanted to delete some spam mails. One of those however, exploited a security issue with the Outlook preview window to run its payload and immediately started sending mails to my adress book contacts.

I immediately unplugged the network, rebooted the PC and scanned it. In addition, I sent a warning message to my contacts from a clean system and called most of them to reduce damage. Luckily, none of them got infected.

After that I discovered that the virus / worm had destroyed or corrupted all executable files in the programs directory. So I went ahead with a fresh Windows install, which didn't take too long because I had prepared a CD that contained both my system and my programs.

Needless to say, I have never been using IE, Outlook or Hotmail since then. My systems have never been infected again - but I've cleaned up lots of machines from other people who had been hit pretty bad by multiple Trojan / Backdoor infections.

As I said: I thought I was already being careful, but since this incident I'm sometimes a bit paranoid. Guess I learned my lesson back then.

El Capitan

Side note: I was running Avira at that time, but it was of no help with that nasty Outlook exploit. But trust me, they've come a long way since then.

 

Greeting card site if i remember correctly.



snowbound

 

Bummer. If you can't trust a greeting card, who can you trust.

How about you, emperordarius: what progs were you downloading that bit you on your sit-down??


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Yearrrrrs ago Michael Angelo virus from a floppy game that my stepson brought home.