Question For The Aging Experts

Gator Bait

 
I like your opinion fishlessman and agree about the cut of meat. I may have to order some drybags and experiment. Next month is a budget killer for me but when I make it past that speed bump in the road of life I may have to give it a shot. :cheer:

Gator

 

Grandpas Grub

 
:laugh: :laugh:

Boy was I pissed last night. My son-in-law and family was over eating dinner and listening to a college basketball game.

Evidently his nephew had some special website that pirated the feed so he could watch the game. He got on one of my more important computers and proceeded to watch the game.

I didn't see what he did but the computer got hit with the same damn virus fishelssman got. From 7pm until I posted I was fighting that problem.

kill was the word of the night.

Anyway, all is good now and the fix is pretty easy, I have to be careful I don't break my arm patting myself on the back.

Kent

fishlessman

good you got it of the puter fast. i didnt even realize it was a virus at first and probably did more damage than the virus was doing :laugh:

fishlessman

i think its worth the expiriment, whats the worse that can happen at 2 dollars a pound beef, chili

Gator Bait

 
I don't blame you Kent, I'm as sick and tired of all these viruses as I am of this cold weather in Florida! Are you referring to the Internet Security 2010 virus? What was your cure and what anti virus software do you run?

I am trying to play it as safe as I can with out locking myself in a closet. I run Norton's Internet Security 2010 and do scans frequently. I have been trying to switch over to Firefox but have yet to be able to log on here with it. It has to be a stupid setting on my computer somewhere, it is just a matter of time before I find it. I am looking at other hosting sites. I like Photobucket but if they are a risk I think it may be prudent to avoid them. That search is still in progress.

Glad you got your machine straightened out,

Gator

 

Grandpas Grub

 
I can understand you thoughts. It sure looks like and official warning. I knew it was a virus after reading your various posts about it. WE are calling it a virus but in actuality it is scareware something relative new.

I also looked at the errors it was supposedly finding and in the scan that shows up. There was an error reported on a piece of software that I've never had.

There was nothing in that virus that would physically hurt software or hardware. It just nag's you to death and turns off all protection.

After figuring it out that virus can be removed literally in about 3-5 minutes then the Malwarebytes scan takes 10 to 15 minutes and it is gone.

The problem is that people that get hit panic and won't see the fix information.

Kent

fishlessman

by the time i realized what it was i had more problems,when the antivirus program avg stopped working it let some other stuff in. a bunch of security issues, was told to change all passwords on all accounts

Grandpas Grub

 
"I am trying to play it as safe as I can with out locking myself in a closet." That is the biggest problem with all this.

The actual virus/scareware that hit me and I am pretty sure fishlessman shows up as:

XP AntiSpyware 2010 - unregistered version

I would guess it is the same thing you mentioned.

What hit me is not dangerous but a real pain in the butt.

To fix this there has to be some registry entries corrected. This can be done automatically with running a routine one can build themselves. I have it done and can send the file to anyone who needs it.

Once that routine is run, takes less than 1 second the virus is disabled in memory.

The next step is to run malwarebuytes quick scan with the new updates. That removes the deployable trojan & programs that are on the computer. Malwarebytes will (should) force a reboot and all is well.

I don't think the problem is photobucket rather something that comes up when in photobucket.

I got hit when my son-in-law was in a routine at AHTDHE.net Evidently that site is where a lot of "pay for service" sports events can be seen. I am not sure if that is a pirate site or not. I am not going back to find out.

For anti-virus up to a 4 or 5 years ago I used to run Norton exclusively.

Right now I have McAfee on 2 machines and Avast on 3 others. I am soon going to remove McAfee. I have 3 or 4 copies of Norton here as well as now Comcast offers Norton free to their subscribers. Comcast must have gotten a better deal with Symantec over McAfee.

What was interesting is that Norton or TrendMicro could detect this virus. Nor did Malwarebytes until the newest updates were installed. The virus program intercepted the updates after being downloaded and would not allow them to install.

I am now wondering if any one antivurs is better than another. I am just staying with the free ones.

Kent

Grandpas Grub

 
On my virus that is part of the ploy. The warning balloon's just kept coming. Passwords compromised, trojan's found, virus's found, the warnings were relentless.

When I saw the password threats I unplugged that machine from the internet. Then I saw the fake scan and stopped worrying about the password, key logging and compromised bank account threats.

I think at one time I have 17 warnings showing up on the screen at the same time. I run dual monitors on that machine so I could move the warnings the right monitor and work the problem on the left monitor.

I came very close to reformatting and reinstalling the OS.

I used a thumbdrive to detect the virus and that darn virus looked at the thumdrive when it was plugged in the USB port and seemed to erase all the files. What actually is it changed the attributes to 'hidden' so the files couldn't be seen. The files were still there though.

The only objective of the this virus is to scare the person into sending money to remove the virus.

If the virus hits again and the virus hasn't been changed let me know and it can get it removed very easily in a few minutes.

 

fishlessman

that site they want you to send money for the registered version that is supposed to fix the virus is a huge scam as well, ive seen posts where people bought into it and were charged 3 to 4 times what they thought they were paying as well as giving them even more personal info. hopefully noone here falls into that trap

Grandpas Grub

 
There sure are getting a lot of creative ways to steal out there. This virus on the surface is pretty darn intimidating, especially if someone is fairly new to this sort of stuff.

If people pay for the fix via credit card or even paypal they can get their money back it is simply fraud.

We got caught up in 'keep charging' the credit card scheme with some mail order arthritis cures for my wife. Took a long time to get the money back on that stuff. It was a pay for shipping for a one month supply and they will bill and send the pills once a month. $1.99 for the trial and $95 each month thereafter. OUCH!!!

 

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

that's what the virus does. sends you to a site that asks for money to get rid of it.

most times something (warning pop up, something in the tray, etc.) is misspelled horribly and obviously, or is low resolution...

viruses are obvious. if anything other than the software you have installed offers to get rid of it, don't touch it.

fishlessman

at first it looks like your own security system. it set up a symbol in the area bottom right on my screen where the volum control, printer toolbox etc is located and the error mesage pops up from there, looks just like part of the system, even the symbol in the box matched the avg program shield symbol. the buy it screen pops up way after you start having problems and from what i read is more problems if down loaded. it starts out looking REAL

Grandpas Grub

 
Not sure what my SIL clicked to drop the virus on the machine.

Once deployed it was very clean looking. There were some not so obvious signs. Whoever designed it did a really good job.

 

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

but that symbol is often low-res, or looks like nothing in your system tray. but by then, you already have it

fishlessman

i get the same symbol there when my old avg was running, was close enough you would really have to look close and if you closed that screen with the x in the box, your fully infected