what do I need to know about viruses?

[lailaw]

I am going to use google to look up viruses, trojan horses and whatever else. That's what I did here in the doom9 forums - read and read and read. More than once, I had to brace myself so I would not fall out of my chair (out of exhaustion and frustration :o ). I guess I did it wrong, whatever it was I was trying to do, to eliminate the avenues I shouldn't have gone down in the first place. If that makes sense. But being wrong when it comes to viruses, I can't do that. So, I'm not trying to take shortcuts. I would be grateful if you posted links and even a faq (approved by doom9 and moderators :)) about viruses and all the destructive things we run into.

[Mac Sidewinder]

The two things you need to know are: 1. Don't get one and 2. Get a good virus detector. I catch and them quite often.

Mac

[mtc]

Here's some links that may be helpful:

Viruses Explained (http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/explained/)

Spyware explained (http://www.basement.net.nz/articles/spyware.html)

Also I find AVG to be a good little anti-virus program, checks e-mails etc, auto updates, and its free. You can get ithere (http://www.grisoft.com)

[mtc]

Also, you may want to read up on hoax viruses as well:

here (http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/) and here (http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1678)

[lailaw]

thanks for the links

[MadScientist]

my virus scanner (anit-virus tool) has documantation on all the viruses it can "spot" its called f-secure. I beleve that the symantec's nortons antivirus also has more information in its user manuals. u dont realy need to know about viruses, other than have a good virus scanner and dont download thoes bogus attatchments in e-mails. also watch out for warez sites as they have harmfull scripts in there web scripts :(

[theReal]

One rule of thumb: the more unexperienced people have access to a computer, the more viruses it will get. Also the more public your email address is the more viruses you will get.

I've never seen a virus before I had been working as the computer guy for the department of romance literature at the university. Before then, I couldn't believe viruses really were a nuisance. Then, in only a few months, I had to remove so many viruses and got so many emails with viruses attached, it was amazing...

My own computer still doesn't have a permanent virus scanner (I have one installed I do a scan about once a month, but that's it) and I've still never had a virus on my own box.

However, I'd not let my dad's computer run a minute without a permanent scanner on (don't know what he's gonna click on without thinking about a virus...)

[nikthebak]

Just out of curiosity, I think it should be said that there are no real virii in existence anymore.

That's because no one can program anymore, these recent "viruses" are nothing but some stupid scripts made by stupid script kiddies using some stupid scripting language, i.e. MSOffice VBScript. Well, at least they make life easier for antivirus programs.

Back in the DOS era we had real virii. Tremor, Natas, Neuroquila and the works. All of them were programming miracles. Stealthing, polymorphic, anti-antivirus capable, everything. Unix also had some pretty decent worms. Those were the days :D

Edit:

If someone wants to read about real virii of the past, here are some extremely interesting bits:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/tremor.shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/natas.shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/neuroqui.shtml

This one is quite funny, I once got infected myself:
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/spanska.shtml

[theReal]

The only one that was pretty tough in recent years was Klez (about a year ago). I found this one in a small office-network in combination with a worm (don't know the name anymore). The only way to disinfect a computer was to run a scanner in dos safe-mode, but then the worm on another network computer would quickly infect the disinfected machine again.

It was kind of two virii (I forgot all about Latin in the last post and wrote "viruses" throughout ;)) that were supporting each other in keeping the network infected. You really had to disconnect all network cables and clean every computer in DOS, nothing else helped.

[Joe999]

1. Don't use outlook for your email
2. Watch much of the problem disapear. ;)

[Joe999]

3. Watch me sneeze while posting and hit submit twice!
4. Profit?

[Fox Mulder]

5. Nor use Internet Exploder as a browser
6. Use Opera or Mozilla.

[rudeboymcc]

when you say outlook do you mean outlook express or MS outlook XP?

i use MS outlook xp with AVG anti-virus and Zone alarm fire wall. i've had no problems ever with virii, and my pc is always on with a broadband connection.

and as for internet explorer, what difference does it make what browser you're using? surely whatever you're using you can set the security control either in the browser itself or in a virus or firewall program.

[rudeboymcc]

and also, what alternative e-mail programs do you recommend? i've found eudora so far apparently it's very secure but can anyone confirm this?

[theReal]

Any program other than Outlook or OE is safer because of one reason:
Most virii are written for Outlook and OE because these are the most widely used Mail applications. Other programs are not safer because they're better (maybe sometimes, but not always) they're just not considered by virus programmers and script kiddies.

btw. I've been using OE and IE for quite some time now without ever having a virus. If you are careful and know what to click and what not to click and how to set your security settings, you can safely use MS software just like any other software.

[lailaw]

thanks again for the help guys :) much appreciated

[bilu]

Originally posted by nikthebak

Back in the DOS era we had real virii. Tremor, Natas, Neuroquila and the works. All of them were programming miracles. Stealthing, polymorphic, anti-antivirus capable, everything. Unix also had some pretty decent worms. Those were the days :D

Edit:

If someone wants to read about real virii of the past, here are some extremely interesting bits:

http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/tremor.shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/natas.shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/neuroqui.shtml


I had the F-PROT antivirus and read that same Tremor description. It looked like a novel, like the author of the description actually felt some sort of admiration for the virus :)


Bilu