Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with virus

Tricky trojan?

mateuslee — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:50:17 -0800

Please help me get rid of this annoying virus/spyware infection on my laptop I'm abroad and, after letting a bunch of people at a conference copy my PPT to their USBs, I noticed that the computer was behaving a bit strangely, so now that I am online I tried to download McAfee stringer, but the site wouldn't open, the same goes for the other usual online-scanner programs, Kaparszky, Panda etc. None of the pages open.

As for now, trying to download the torrents, but this goes impossibly slow and in the meantime I need to work.

Does anyone have any suggestions short of going to an internet café and downloading it to a memory stick?I tried to get my girlfriend to send stinger over gmail, but it is too big even when zipped.

Running ClamWin now, but so far nothing.

I wonder if there are some mirror sites or some other solution to this problem.

Thanks a lot!

Deleting Doubleclick.net spyware

Postroad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:20:59 -0800

removing spyware called Doubleclick.net I use a IMac, with Firefox. When I go to delete all cookies (under Preferences) all get deleted except one called "doubleclick.net"

I would like to delete this,but I have no tech skills. How can this be done without playing with the register?

Germs on my hands

MrMulan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:17:15 -0800

Is it possible for bacteria, and/or viruses to ever physically adapt to soap, alcohol, peroxide, iodine, ect.? Washing your hands is the best way to cut down on a known vector for germs to spread. Could bacteria adapt physically in a similar way lice or hookworms have? Or does their size make it impossible? Same for viruses.

I know bacteria can and are adapting to chemical solutions like anti-bacterial soap. When hand washing with soap, the soap is not suppose to kill the bacteria, but it is the physical activity of rubbing that gets rid of the bacteria. The soap just makes it physically easier to transfer bacteria from your hands to the soap which is then washed down the drain.

As for viruses, could they ever evolve to the point that the usual disinfectants would not work? (alcohol, lysol, ect.)

Personal answers, opinions, anecdotes, are all welcomed, but links are always preferred.

As always thanks in advanced.

I like not catching colds, but I also like kissing my wife

ManInSuit — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:42:13 -0800

If your spouse catches a cold, how likely are you to catch it from them? When your spouse gets a cold, what, if anything, do you do to avoid catching that cold, and why?

I wonder about this every time Mrs ManInSuit gets sick. I want to be nice to her, and enjoy her company. I also don’t want to get that cold. I wish I had a better sense of what the real risks are. So, say your spouse starts having cold symptoms (and you don’t have any). Here are some imagined possibilities of what that means:

Imagined Possibility #1 – By the time your spouse shows symptoms, you’ve already been exposed like crazy to their cold. If you haven’t caught it by now, it means you’re immune to that particular strain. So, like, don’t worry about it.

Imagined Possibility #2 – The fact that haven’t caught your spouse’s cold so far just just means you’ve been very lucky. If you want to avoid that cold, you should start being careful: keep your distance, don’t share cutlery, wash your hands a lot, etc. Otherwise, you’re pretty likely to get that cold.

Imagined Possibility #3 – Cold transmission is a pretty unpredictable and unreliable thing. For each day you spend with your spouse, there’s a chance you’ll get sick. But even if you’re totally incautious, the odds are you still won’t get that cold.

Can anyone shed light on which, if any, of these are most accurate. I suspect the truth is some complicated combination or in-between of all the above, but I’d like whatever insights the green might offer. Insights backed with reliable scientific sources or expertise are epecially helpful...

simplesimplesimple

benzenedream — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:47:34 -0800

What is the initial verbal meme that triggers the Pontypool outbreak in the movie Pontypool?

How do I make an Antivirus Pro 2010/Protection System infection go away?

momzilla — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:49:17 -0800

How do I make an Antivirus Pro 2010/Protection System infection go away? I got it bad. I cannot run any executible files. When I try to run a program I either get a rundll32.exe error, or I get the "Open With" dialog box. Regedit doesn't work, either. How can I make this go away short of formatting the HD? There are some files on the computer that I'd like to try to salvage if possible.

am i infected?

KateHasQuestions — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:24:32 -0800

Is the FanCheck application on facebook a virus? My friend posted this on my page:
"Apparently the FAN CHECK Application is a VIRUS that takes 48 hours to kick in. Even if you are tagged in a photo the virus still attacks you. Please inform all you friends and remove/delete the application ASAP. Copy and paste this as your status so word gets around"

The friend is not sure if it's true or not, just wanted to pass it along to me.

The fan check app tells you how many people comment/like/write on your wall and pictures. I did it, and noticed that it definitely wasn't totally right. One of the people in the top fans list I wasn't even friends with anymore on facebook, but didn't really think twice of it. I just went to the app page because I wanted to remove it just in case, and it just said "The application "Fan Check" is temporarily unavailable due to an issue with its third-party developer. We are investigating the situation and apologize for any inconvenience."

Anyone know if it's a virus, and if yes, what will happen?

As a side question - I've never heard of virus apps on fb before, how would I tell the difference in the future? How good would facebook be with getting rid of them, anyone know?

Sorry if this question makes you think "some people are idiots and shouldn't be using the internet." Technology isn't my strongest forte.

Hello, I must be going.

4ster — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 10:39:52 -0800

While attempting to remove a virus from my in-laws Windows XP Home machine, I have now made it so that it boots to the login screen, and when you click on a username, it logs in and immediately logs my back out, leaving me at the login screen. Oh noes. A few more relevant details:

- It does this in Safe Mode as well.
- They don't back this system up at all.
- I tried to do a repair of Windows using an XP install disk, but it kept asking for an Administrator password. To my knowledge, there isn't an admin password, but I still can't get this to work.
- The file I deleted is still in the Recycle Bin.
- Less than a year ago, my wife and I provided the owners of this computer with a brand new, beautiful grandchild, but at this moment, I don't think that will help me much.

How can I get this thing to boot properly again? Thanks for your help.

Cold Sore

freddymetz — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:49:44 -0800

Medicalfilter: I kissed someone with a cold sore. Do i now have herpes? What can i do right now to prevent the virus from potentially incubating? It was in the scab stage if that matters at all.

Free/low-cost virus protection for Windows?

GilloD — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:58:59 -0800

I just got a raging beast of a new laptop. Runs Left 4 Dead like a dream. Problem: I've been in Mac-world for 7 years. Now that I'm back in Windows Land, I gotta be careful. What's the best free/low-cost/open-source spyware/malware/virus protection around? Running Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Suggestions?

Annoying virus problem

Blackwatch — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:54:11 -0800

How do I get rid of this annoying virus? My laptop seems to have picked up a virus, and I'm having trouble identifying it, never mind eliminating it.
It seems to have attacked my web browser IE8.
Suddenly, a new box has appeared to the right of the address bar. It has AOL search in it.
Now every time I search for something on, say, google, it tries to redirect to an odd place. At first, I noticed slirsredirect at the bottom of the browser as it tried to connect.
I don't see that any more, but now it won't let me access many sites, including bbc and, of course, any site that might help me get rid of the virus!
I know it's not my broadband connection as I can access the same sites using my ipod touch on the same wireless network.
I've tried adaware and spybot and, while my Avira antivirus seemed to pick it up and cure it on the first scan, it now no longer does so, and the virus is obviously still there.
Can anyone help?
Thank you so much.

How to withhold virus infections (of the computer variety) from the ones you love?

Napoleonic Terrier — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:39:59 -0800

Suggestions for cleaning a virus-infected Windows machine appearing in a non-administrator account without resort to (1) the administrator account or (2) a nuke and re-install? So my friend has a user account on her brother's Windows XP SP2 machine, with her brother set up as the password-protected administrator. She has picked up some viruses and/or spyware on her account.

I have booted the machine into safe mode and run some of the programs (such as ComboFix) recommended from prior MeFi posts. With access through safe mode, should I be able to get rid of all the nasties or do I need to run programs from the administrator account? Any other ideas?

She hopes to fix the problem without alerting her brother. So the best solution, a nuke and re-install, is currently off the table.
Thanks!

Spurious NBNS traffic

dhoe — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:51:15 -0800

There's probably a virus on my laptop, how can I identify it? I noticed in Vista's perfmon that there is traffic originating from the "System" process even while no processes with net access where running.

In Wireshark I see lots of reverse dns lookups and NBNS traffic. The NBNS seems to only send "NBTSTAT *", which seems to be a test on the NBNS services of other machines. Destination is port 137 of about 30 different IP addresses over a 5 minute period. The IP addresses are all over the world, Russia, Argentina, Japan, etc.

This is a Vista SP1 with all updates, AVG does not detect anything, F-Secure Blacklight neither.

I turned off Netbios in the TCP properties, and the traffic stopped completely.

Any ideas of what this could be? I'm also interested in how you would troubleshoot this assuming that no automatic tool can detect it - I've got my copy of Windows Internals besides me and windbg installed, but don't really know what to look for.

Sick computer

wandering steve — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:59:08 -0800

Last night, the volume control on my computer started acting up -- every few moments, it would turn itself down to zero. Can the hivemind hope me? I installed AVG's free antivirus software, which seems to have caused further problems -- since installing AVG, I cannot get on the internet with my laptop. The page either comes up blank, or I get a message saying "the connection to the server was reset while the page was loading."

I know the wireless connection is not the problem, because other laptops in the house work just fine.

While AVG was scanning my computer in safe mode, there was a lot that was not scanned: AVG claimed the files were locked. AVG doesn't find any guck on my computer.

Is there anything else I can do to fight this thing, or do I have to pay somebody to get rid of this for me?

How to "lock down" Windows on a home PC

ackptui — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:52:03 -0800

I've been wondering if it is possible to apply the same solution to the never-ending problem of Windows corruption (and the resulting degraded performance) that data centers use. As I understand it, Windows is booted over the network, so what happens to the local hard drive does not matter. Is there a way of doing the same thing to a home PC? Can you make a hard drive "read-only" after putting a bootable Windows image on it, and then use a seperate hard drive for data storage? I really detest the solution that MS sponsors (virus protection/firewall software) because it is just another thing that you have to buy which supports it's business partners. Any other ideas?

No video input detected on bootup.

TimeTravelSpeed — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:45:01 -0800

Computer froze completely during a game, all subsequent downloads of various installer files were corrupt. BSODs galore. Now, when I turn on my computer, no video input is detected whatsoever. Next step? This problem sounds like a combination of a virus, hard-drive failure, and video-card failure, so I'm not sure what to try next. Any suggestions?

Approximate timeline of events from last Friday night, to Saturday morning:

0. Built a near-top-of-the-line computer 3 months ago
1. Friday, started a game Team Fortress 2 using the Steam client (I play this all the time).
2. An hour or so into play, the entire computer froze, game audio was on a 1-second loop. Couldn't even CTRL+ALT+DEL
3. Performed hard reset, tried to defrag, but it stopped progressing after about 20%.
4. Tried to launch Steam again but was told a game file had been corrupted. Uninstalled Steam.
5. Downloaded latest Steam installation and ran it, but was told the installation was corrupt
6. Uninstalled Avira anti-virus, downloaded Avira installer, ran it, and again was told installation was corrupt.
7. Same results with Adaware installation. However, Spybot installation was successful (no results from SB scan btw).
8. Rebooted and immediately got some sort of "NTLDR, unable to boot" error. Hard reset fixed this.
9. Was able to reinstall Avira and begin a full virus scan. 3/4 of the way through, scan stopped progressing and got a BSOD.
10. Now, when I turn on my computer, I can hear the whirring and humming of the internals, but no video input is detected by the monitor. Neither resetting monitor, nor replugging video cable helps.

I haven't touched any of the physical internals yet (e.g. re-seating video card), but will try that tonight.

I tried to keep this brief, so some details may be missing. Let me know if you need clarification.

Can viruses damage hardware?

carterk — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:19:09 -0800

I recently met someone who told me he'd had to discard all the hard disks and memory chips from his computers due to their being infected by a virus. He'd had to discard graphics cards and even an expensive printer because its internal memory had become corrupted by the virus (rorschach, I think). I had never before heard of permanent damage to hardware from virus infection. Clue me in, please?

I think I got a bug from a torrent

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:04:31 -0800

I've tried illegally downloading an application, and I'm pretty sure it is intent on messing up my computer and/or stealing my infos. Here's the catch- I'm runny the latest version of Leopard OS_X. In an effort to get a pretty expensive application that I've wanted for a long time, I downloaded a torrent containing said application. After the cracking program opened and didn't do anything, I became immediately suspiscious. So, long story short, I opened up good old terminal (which I'm somewhat familiar with) and my command line prompt addressed me as a user I don't recognize. This kind of scared the crap out of me, as it seems like something a trojan-esque virus might do. Since the incident I haven't used any passwords or done anything that requires authentication, and I don't plan on doing so until I've got this figured out.

I'm not sure this would be such a predicament for me if I weren't running Leopard, since there are plenty of anti-virus tools for Windows. But
I've been googling about virus scanners for leopard, or virus removal for leopard and can't really find anything.

So, hive mind OS_X experts- How can I diagnose whether I really do have a problem on my shameful hands, and if so, how can I fix it? Are there any good generic diagnosis / removal tools I should look into purchasing (legally, of course!) ?

Is it possible that the cracking program I used did something to my root user so that it could perform its crack, and that it was not malicious at all?
Also, should I be concerned that the damage has already been done? perhaps my hard drive has already been scanned for information which has been sent to whomever wants it?

I've created a follow up email here: ithinkihaveabadbug@gmail.com which I will be glad to follow up on. please hope me with whatever suggestions you may have!

Vectors of Computer Virus Infection

mary8nne — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:08:37 -0800

What are the common form of Computer Virus spread these days? I remeber back in the day it was all about Word macros, then Outlook attachmets auto-running, but therse days is it all Internet Browser Exploits? How does your computer get infected these days? Can you get a virus just by visiting a webpage (but not running any aps / agreeing to intall anything)? Do viruses these days need you to explicitly agree to run something?

If you are 'really really careful' about what you do and do not run then do you really need Anti-Virus software / Spyware etc?

I recently seemed to get infected with this Antivirus Pro but I'm not sure where it came from. It could have been a Facebook thing.

Virus Scan Company That Accepts Submissions?

Quarter Pincher — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:31:59 -0800

Do any of the major virus-scan software sites permit sending in a questionable programs for possible addition to the ongoing alerts? Ultimately, I'm wondering whether the Marie Brighton / Synovate computer survey is safe to take -- they're asking me to install and run this program that sends them details about my machine (system name, machine name, installed devices, various settings, etc). It sounds really hokey. I don't want to just share the program with the world, here, in case it has account-related information along with it already.

Pretty much all the details are here, and requests to see whether I can just check off a manual survey of "do you have this"-style questions merely state that I'd only get the incentive ($20) for running the program. I've saved-as the program, but haven't run it yet. I'm just fine with simply not running it, but there doesn't seem to be any coverage of the subject on the web much at all, and I'm sure someone else would like to know also.

As for the original question -- I'm curious as to whether there's a well-established scanner/etc site out there that accepts user submissions of questionable programs, instead of just checking it with a scan. I'd like vastly superior details on the program, not just a red or a green flag.

Sneaky, nasty PC virius...SOS!

dawson — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:59:28 -0800

So for the first time in...well, ever. I let my pc get infected. The virus is calling itself 'Internet Antivirus Pro'....and this is how it happened... A facebook friend sent me and several others a video clip 'he found'.
This is NOT the friends fault, his account was hacked or whatever. He sent a warning out minuites later. Meanwhile, I was updating some programs. 'His' video said it needed a newer version of Adobe Flash to play...I blithely clicked on update. Nothing seemed to happen, so I went to the Adobe site and my PC was up to date.
Then I closed that window and saw a big malware warining page. It was too late. I had clicked on 'update Adobe' in the video screen. (this was all 'inside' facebook.)
So now this thing is taking over my computer, with bogus warnings (Internet Antivirus Pro has detected 37dangerous viruses, your computer is in immediate danger. Click here to unlock key!) and pop-unders and 'auto'-updates and crap. I tried to uninstall, and it did vanish from my programs, but OBVIOUSLY not from my machine.
What to do?
I have never, ever had this happen before, as usually I am obsessively ultra-cautios. But there it is.
Please, what are my options?
Dell inspiron 1720, Vista, Chrome...

back it up, back it up

gnutron — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:27:13 -0800

Can a virus on my desktop infect my external HD? Solutions needed for backing up data on a computer I'm about to nuke. Last nite a virus slipped past Avast! and infected my desktop computer. I'd like to backup a few more things before I nuke the box.

Is it safe to plug in my external HD and copy some specific files? I can't boot into safe mode (I get an "NTLDR is missing" message). I've already unplugged the computer from the network.

I've made a huge mistake.

mustard seeds — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:21 -0800

Thinkpad T61 (Vista) doing scary things. Extremely naive about computer matters. Any help appreciated. This morning I woke up and noticed that Avira had failed to update, but stupidly didn't think anything of it. Throughout the day, Opera kept crashing. I didn't think too hard on it, but I did run a system scan using Avira and it came up clean. Then this evening, I was innocently going about my business when suddenly all my programs closed on their own volition and I realized, "Oh, crap! I bet I have something bad on my computer!"

Since that reboot, I have been unable to access Avira, Adaware, Spybot, and Windows Defender. I was able to Download Malwarebytes, though, and a few things came up on the scan. One was a Trojan, the name of which I did not catch and the other was "rootkit.bagle." Oh no!

After I typed that last paragraph, my computer crashed again, flashing me the blue screen of death before it went. Eek. I apologize if there are millions of posts like this, but I have not been able to answer my questions from reading them. I looked at the advice from this post and plan on doing those things as soon as I can (unless you tell me otherwise). Here are my questions:
1. Do I need to say my goodbyes to all the movies, music, etc. on my external hard drive?
2. What should I do if I need to start from scratch? I just realized that I don't have the discs with me (I'm in China... I was sure I had brought the discs with me... Ugh.). Should I/Will I be able to use the "restore to factory settings" the Thinkvantage button gives me?

Please forgive me if I'm saying stupid things/leaving out important details/whatever. I'm typing fast so I can post this before my computer unexpectedly shuts down again. Oh, I just remembered, all these things are still true when I'm in safe mode. Ok. It's bedtime here, but I'll check on this thread as soon as I am able. Thank you, metafilter!

Trojan Virus

roxiesmom — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:10:38 -0800

Trojan Virus Attack I have Norton Antivirus 2009, today I received a notification that I have a Trojan.Brisv.A!inf virus. After trying several different listed ways of removing it, such as downloading a removal tool (only for it to tell me that I do not have that virus on my computer). To trying to manually remove it, only to be told it cannot be removed.

I have contact Norton support and they want to charge $100 to get a specialist to fix the problem. I do not have the money to spend on that right now. My computer is important to me and I am on a network and I do not want to infect the other computers.

So I come to you to help me. Is there any other solution to this problem that would not involve me paying a lot of money.

Someone please help!!!

wirless connection slow down

tangyraspberry — Fri, 08 May 2009 09:39:50 -0800

Can anyone suggest a remedy for a slowed up wireless connection? My p.c., laptop's wireless connection has mysteriously slowed way down even though my wife's connection speed (we both work at home) remains strong. I purchased and swept my laptop multiple times with an anti-malware program which found and rid my p.c of several viruses. The program now shows my system is free of all viruses yet the problem continues.