Protect your software

[lanxce]

Recently a friend of mine was hit by a deadly virus(we're both XP users)..
w32/Sality.h
the damn thing would infect all his executables. Program files, dead. His software folder was wacked too.
Some of his software however was compressed as zip and rar files. those ones survived.

Now whenever u get software..keep it in an archive winrar is a good tool to compress files.

 

[t2t2t]

Now whenever u get software..keep it in an archive winrar is a good tool to compress files.

This can be annoying on older machines... Maybe just keep backups of programs in an archive(s)?

 

[lanxce]

Like what kinda older machines?

 

[t2t2t]

Like a machine with 1,333 Ghz processor and 512 MB ram?
(I do have a newer machine now, but used to use it till last month)

Putting all programs into an archive just sounds too cautious.

 

[lanxce]

well i had that very attitude till i saw the devastation this virus left in its wake..mcAfee claimed to clean the files but unfortunately after the clean the file is damaged..imagine having your Adobe software failing to run and you go to your software folder hoping to re-install and it is also corrupted...
hell i tell u

 

[Spartan Erik]

When it comes to viruses like that there's nearly no point in wasting time salvaging.. reformatting can be quite fun at times.

I don't like the idea of putting all files into one RAR archive, but instead backing them up onto an external hard drive.. they're getting cheaper nowadays

 

[xPlozion]

and any good antivirus software should pick it up instantly (avg, kaspersky, nod32...), but mcaffe and norton are horrible av programs, and pickup very few viruses.

as spartan said, reformatting would be the way to go if a virus hit my system (and avg for some reason didn't pick it up), for a few reasons. 1, your system is faster once its reinstalled, because there's no errors in the registry, no corrupted system files, and you don't have to uninstall programs and reinstall them, just install them on a fresh install.

 

[GTKILLA]

Heh Norton sucks like a scam. All it detects is tracking cookies when the FREE software detects spyware and other things.........

 

[cenobite321]

I think it's best to download a basic antivirus like AVG and stay out of dubious websites and e-mails. Remember what the curiosity made to the cat

 

[Max1337]

When it comes to anti-viruses, I like Kaspersky the most.
Kaspersky is used at work, and it works great.
I used to have McAfee, but there were some viruses that got through, and McAfee didn't do anything about it :rant2:
McAfee has a decent firewall though, but their anti-virus isnt all that good lol.

 

[ichwar]

In my experience, the linux kernel is immune to these kind of attacks because root access is required write to any of the system files.

 

[xPlozion]

that's another reason why i loved using linux. the way that it is setup so securely (unix and *bsd are the same way) makes it so that you have to make the program do damage.

when you first dl a script or w/e, it cannot run as a program. You would need to do chmod +x to the file (execution perms), then execute it, and if it didn't have root permissions (which you have to login as the root user and set the perms to the root user), the worst damage it could ever do is to your home directory. (rm -r ~/ being the worst).

 

[ichwar]

that's another reason why i loved using linux. the way that it is setup so securely (unix and *bsd are the same way) makes it so that you have to make the program do damage.

when you first dl a script or w/e, it cannot run as a program. You would need to do chmod +x to the file (execution perms), then execute it, and if it didn't have root permissions (which you have to login as the root user and set the perms to the root user), the worst damage it could ever do is to your home directory. (rm -r ~/ being the worst).

Yes, that's great. It's almost impossible for a virus to ruin your whole computer.


I know someone who had a similar problem to the one that was described at the begginning of this thread. He downloaded and installed a "graphics editor" (he runs XP) and when he rebooted his computer, nothing would work except his web browsers: both IE and FF would only go to one site, it was a site that was selling a program that would supposedly fix his computer and set everything back to normal again.
Fortunately, he also had google chrome installed and that didn't get infected by the virus, so he was able to get online after a while and get a free program that would solve his problem. I think the two he used were: "Spybot, Search and Destroy" and "HijackThis". Between the two of them, he cleaned up his PC and got it back to normal, but it cost him a LOT of time. Between he and I, I scored another point for linux (he's a windows fan and I'm trying to get him to use linux more ).

Does anyone else have any bad windows experiences like that?:naughty:

 

[xPlozion]

hmm, nah. i don't install programs unless i know what it is. the only graphics editors i use are made by adobe or if it's avail on linux (gimp, inkscape, blender), or big named ones (3dsmax, sony vegas).

if i'm still unsure, i always google the app and make sure that if it's ok that i get it from a reliable site (filehippo). download.com's speeds are nerve wrackingly slow