Computer Troubles

[g15usmc]

Spybot is more of an active tool to just keep in the background on a healthy computer. It catches things and prevents them from installing unless you allow them. Not really a good clean-up tool. Malwarebytes is my favorite cleanup tool, and I also run AVG Free on my PCs, with Spybot at the same time.

i hear this guy know his stuff... I use Webroot Anti-virus with spysweeper...I like this program because it is the only program i've ever used where it catches virtually every virus that try's to attack the computer as well as catching them on the back end if they slip through the cracks...it will also give you online backup space that all u have to do is log in and follow prompts to set up...then if you try a backup from the computer and it doesn't work you can go there and do it that way...you see a lot of times from my experience working with other peoples computers that even though they do back ups on their computer they have the backups set up to were it saves a new backup every so often for example purposes lets say weekly...but they also have it set up for a size limit, that size limit will generally save 3-4 back ups at a time, erasing the earliest back up and moving forward...with this being the case and since most people don't realize they have a virus until a month or two has gone by they dont have a good backup to use from their computer because the backup has the virus as well...this being the case, you can call the company that built your computer, ie dell, hp, toshiba etc. and request a copy of the factory set operating system installed on your computer...Most company's will give you your first back up copy for free and some include free shipping...if not its worth the 4-6 dollars for the shipping because then you have a hard copy as well which includes every program you've ever had on your computer at the time of purchase as well as a just in case disk...to retrieve this from them you will need your computer S/N from off of the computer...desktops located on the back and laptops located on the bottom...also in these same spots their is generally an operating system (OS) Key which you need to re-install your OS. If this has worn off your computer you can often times request the key from the Building Company as well based off your S/N...

And in case anyone was wondering as long as the hard drive is not corrupted ie. UNUSABLE you can do the install in a way that you will not lose a drop of valuable information...you save these by doing a system overwrite as apposed to a complete install... an overwrite will replace all files with the same name with good untouched ones as well as often times updating your system with new service packs that you did not download and install in the first place. this way will also re-install all of your device drivers as well and set your system back to default, all without deleting things that are important to you like bank statements or photos and videos...If you do this I suggest you run an antivirus program on start up to remove any unwanted virus' before they attach themselves to your registry again...for anyone reading good luck with this if you need to do this and those who are experts like BUG please feel free to correct anything i may have wrong on here...since i haven't actually done this in awhile...oh and I DONT LIKE WINDOWS 7! just so yall know...contrary to the commercials I DID NOT MAKE IT!

[jwhughes3]

then I do need to worry

John, this same piece of malware is making the rounds on Mac OS as well. Just be careful where you put your clicker, if ya know what I mean.

Cuz my clicker is most often here amongst you guys! (no homo)


I'm a pretty basic web surfer/forum reader for someone who works with computers. I just dont do all that much risky stuff to worry too much.

But I will see what is available for MacOS.

So far I think iPhone and iPad are still safe, just computer is targeted.

John

[planedick]

Best antifirus

AVAST is the best and there's a free version. Updates the virus database often and so far hasen't missed anything. My friend the computer guru who does systems for businesses turned me on to it...

[bluesdog]

mac attack, oh my!

mac malware
Also, if you use Safari, deactivate the "Open 'safe' files after downloading" feature under Preferences > General

A good source of security information for Windows and Mac users:

There's also a powerful tool available for Windows systems, called ComboFix. I've used it successfully, but it should be handled with caution.

[cywelchjr]

I look at it this way, don't matter what you run, don't get cocky. At some point, some hacker WILL crack your system, cause they ALL have holes, every single one of them, and according to the CERT reports, pretty much about the same number of them, the difference seems to be that the windows ones do seem to stay unpatched a little longer if there are no known exploits out for them yet than for the others.

And don't get cocky thinking your safe because you have a smartphone. There are some known viruses out there for iOS and Android at the very least although I understand they are not in the wild in THIS country YET, they ARE in the wild in Asia which means there is every chance they will spread here at some point, and once that starts, well, you know how that goes. (oh, I think there are at least a couple of them for blackberry OS as well, but I'm not sure on that, it IS a pretty locked down OS, which is why corporations like it so much).

I run AV software on my smartphone, and have since probably a little over a month after I got it, but a large part of that was for the security features of the package (it will locate the phone and can make it scream and for a small yearly fee it can lock and wipe the phone on demand if lost.) Not sure if I need that, my insurance coverage provides an app that will do that part for me now.

[g15usmc]

And don't get cocky thinking your safe because you have a smartphone. There are some known viruses out there for iOS and Android at the very least although I understand they are not in the wild in THIS country YET, they ARE in the wild in Asia which means there is every chance they will spread here at some point, and once that starts, well, you know how that goes. (oh, I think there are at least a couple of them for blackberry OS as well, but I'm not sure on that, it IS a pretty locked down OS, which is why corporations like it so much).

I run AV software on my smartphone, and have since probably a little over a month after I got it, but a large part of that was for the security features of the package (it will locate the phone and can make it scream and for a small yearly fee it can lock and wipe the phone on demand if lost.) Not sure if I need that, my insurance coverage provides an app that will do that part for me now.

if you connect your phone to your computer and run it as a hard drive you can actually run the same antivirus program from your computer on the phone as well...

[cywelchjr]

if you connect your phone to your computer and run it as a hard drive you can actually run the same antivirus program from your computer on the phone as well...

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me to ask an AV product for a different OS to check for virus's that it likely knows nothing about. Virus's as a rule don't cross OS lines, let alone processor lines, and are aimed as specific OS and processor targets. In some cases, such as mobile phones which run processor agnostic software, they are just aimed at the OS, but a windows or mac AV scanner would know nothing of the threats to a mobile phone unless specifically designed to know, and would be useless even if it did unless you only way for the virus to get on the phone was via the computer, as by the time you hooked it up to the computer it would be too late. Just as I wouldn't hook a mac drive up to a pc and expect the pc AV software to find any mac malware, or the other way around. Now there are scanners that run on linux that look for windows malware, but they are specifically designed to do that as diagnostic tools, not because they are linux AV tools that just happen to pick up pc malware as well.

[cywelchjr]

if you connect your phone to your computer and run it as a hard drive you can actually run the same antivirus program from your computer on the phone as well...

Oh, and if you do that, the other thing that can happen is that you phone can become a vector for unknown pc virus's to move to other pc's. Since android phones don't actually EVER need to connect to a computer, why would I want to connect it to a computer just to do this even if it would work?

[Jerry]

Here is what I use as an IT manager for our ~150 or so workstations and laptops.

1. ESET NOD32 is our corporate standard (Also checks e-mail.)
2. MBAM (paid for version)
3. Avast (paid for version)
Symantec Anti-Virus for Microsoft Exchange mail servers is running on my Exchange 2003 server.

Thats right...I run a minimum of 3 paid-for virus programs on our computers, 4 on the mail server, and add a couple more free versions (Windows Defender, AVG) to my laptops. Still get infections on the laptops. My law enforcement guys have to go to some unsavory sites and often pick up viruses or malware. Its a testiment to those programs that we don't get more infections than we do, only 1 laptop in the last couple months has had to come in for further work.

I've tried a few other programs, both paid for and free. Don't rely on free versions; they generally are not proactive and scan files only after they have been downloaded to your hard drive. Paid-for versions generally scan incoming files before they are written to your hard drive. The ones I listed consistently do an excellent job of protecting your computer, and all are available in paid-for versions for the home user.

Other utilities I use regularly for hard drive / PC maintenance are:
RegVac Registry Cleaner
A1 Click Ultra PC Cleaner
CC Cleaner
SpyBot Search and Destroy, its File Shredder utility is particularly useful
Diskeeper for automatic defragmentation of hard drives. I have both server and workstations versions.

I run a Mac at home, use TechTools Platinum and Symantec Anti-virus on it. So far I've not had a single virus problem.

[cywelchjr]

Here is what I use as an IT manager for our ~150 or so workstations and laptops.

1. ESET NOD32 is our corporate standard (Also checks e-mail.)
2. MBAM (paid for version)
3. Avast (paid for version)
Symantec Anti-Virus for Microsoft Exchange mail servers is running on my Exchange 2003 server.

Thats right...I run a minimum of 3 paid-for virus programs on our computers, 4 on the mail server, and add a couple more free versions (Windows Defender, AVG) to my laptops. Still get infections on the laptops. My law enforcement guys have to go to some unsavory sites and often pick up viruses or malware. Its a testiment to those programs that we don't get more infections than we do, only 1 laptop in the last couple months has had to come in for further work.

I've tried a few other programs, both paid for and free. Don't rely on free versions; they generally are not proactive and scan files only after they have been downloaded to your hard drive. Paid-for versions generally scan incoming files before they are written to your hard drive. The ones I listed consistently do an excellent job of protecting your computer, and all are available in paid-for versions for the home user.

Other utilities I use regularly for hard drive / PC maintenance are:
RegVac Registry Cleaner
A1 Click Ultra PC Cleaner
CC Cleaner
SpyBot Search and Destroy, its File Shredder utility is particularly useful
Diskeeper for automatic defragmentation of hard drives. I have both server and workstations versions.

I run a Mac at home, use TechTools Platinum and Symantec Anti-virus on it. So far I've not had a single virus problem.

Those are all great tools, and frankly, for home users, avast free is almost identical to the paid version, I forget what you don't get, but you don't lose any protection, only some management capability. I've recently done some comparison between avast and ms security essentials, and they catch pretty much the same stuff, but as you say, you need multiple layers of protection. CC Cleaner is a pretty cool utility, I have used it off and on for years. As for email at work, I'm running Spam Titan in front of our Exchange server, which uses by ClamAV and Kaspesky AV engines plus the anti spam engine. We haven't had a virus get through in email in 3 years, they get stopped at the spam firewall every time, an daily reports come in about what got stopped and where they came from, as well as an email to who it was sent to. And the 1000's of spam emails that hit out email server per day get stopped without out exchange server ever seeing them, less than 1% of what gets sent to us is valid email. Our CFO was debating on paying the $500 per year maint fee for the spam appliance software, so we took it out of line for 3 hours. She cut the check the next day! We had tried a free product based on the same engine, but managing it took so many staff hours, that paying the annual fee for someone to manage the updates and such so that all we have to do is keep it on and whitelist email addresses and such once in a while is so worth it. Bottom line, AV software and such is just completely worth it, and generally you get what you pay for, but in some cases, the good pay for players who really are looking to sell to business users, will give home users pretty much the full pay for product free because they know it can get them in the door with businesses.