Virus protection

[autowasherfreak]

I've been using AVG for the past two or three years, and I really like it.  I haven't had a virus yet using AVG.

 

[spookiness]

Talk about timing...

I read this post around Wednesday and saved the link as a reminder that I needed to update the anti-virus software on one of my laptops. Well on Friday I managed to get attacked by two different virus/malware programs. A tricky issue was that the virus prevented me from executing any programs, and also blocked access to the internet.

I had Malwarebytes installed on the machine, but the definitions were outdated, and I couldn't download them. I had no antivirus s/w on the machine (I know, dumb) because in the past I attempted to install the free Symantec package that the university offers, but I could never get it to install.

Luckily I had another working computer. Rebooted the infected one in safe mode. Managed to manually copy a current MWB definitions file to the infected machine- luckily found links on Google that told me how to do this. One malicious program was relatively easy to remove manually. The other one was not, but once I got MWB to run, it found it. MWB also found and remove 11 other items.

Then I installed and ran Avira. It found 11 more.

Then I installed and ran Avast. It found 7 more.

Moral of the story, run anti-virus and malwarebytes regularly!

 

[whirlcool]

 On a lot of viruses/malware the first thing it does is kill your connection to the internet so you can't download anything that may fix it.  I knew a guy who had a virus that made his floppy disk and CD drive inaccessible.

 

And would you believe that there are a lot of people out there who don't use ANY anti-virus program?  My stupid sister just bought her daughter a brand new Toshiba laptop a few months ago. She also bought a copy of Norton Anti-Virus for it.  When she gave her daughter the laptop she told her to make sure she installs Norton.

 Sure enough a couple of weeks later her daughter calls me crying that she has a virus. I asked her if she installed Norton, and she replied "Was I supposed to do something with that box?" Idiots!

 

You know sometimes I think kids today intentionally act stupid. Some things I hear from them makes me wonder if they ever passed 8th grade.

 

[DADoES]

 

I don't have an antivirus on my WinNT4 system at work.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know ... but the one I was using for years (F-Prot) dropped NT support two or three years ago.  It's used online but only by me and for limited and specific tasks.  Are there any still available that do support NT4 Workstation?  I suppose I should make an effort to replace the system (it's 12 years old), but there's software on it used daily that won't work on 2K or higher due to both software and hardware incompatibility.

 

[whirlcool]

I think Kasperski may work on NT4 Workstation. It was one of the last to support Win98.

 

[passatdoc]

I checked CA antivirus and they no longer support anything before XP.

Last summer, I replaced two eight year old W2K computers in the office to new XP (Dell) machines. I had purchased CA Antivirus 2010 in March 2010 and upgraded all the machines, including the W2K's, so I know that the 2010 version worked on W2K, possibly on NT. The subscriptions for the March 2010 are quickly approaching expiration, so I renewed them online last week using the existing software. Apparently if you buy CA new, the current version does not support anything before XP, though existing installations on older computers could be renewed.

I think Whirlcool is on to something, see below link.

http://www.kaspersky.com/anti-virus_windows_server