Well, someone told me about spyware and all that stuff, so I tried to download a spyware thing, but it only told me I have alot of the stuff. Now when I'm offline some...disturbing? pop-ups show up, and something keeps poping up saying I have a Virus, but it's from the faulty spyware thing, so I think it's a lie. Could anyone give me some advice on what to do to get it to stop? It's spyquake, and I thought that maybe one of you knew something about computers, so, thanks for any help.

Spybot and AdAware (made by Lavasoft) do wonders for me. Google them, and then download them, and then run them, and delete everything it finds.

Adaware SE? I got that a bit after I got the faulty one, and I've tried it.

It won't let m edit posts or reply (except for fast replies) unless I download this Sytemdoctor thing. It says It's blocked, and that I need to download it first.

The message I get about a virus is this

"Critical System Error!
System detected virus activities. they may cause critical system failure. Please, use antimalware software to clean and protect your system from parasite programs. click here to get all available software"

Try getting AdAware again from www.lavasoft.com

It's a great program, just have it do a deep system scan if you didn't have it do that the first time.

If you think you may have a virus try searching downloads.com for the free version of AVG. It is a very nice anti-virus program for its price.

Yea, definitely pick up a GOOD antivirus and spyware cleaner like the ones mentioned above, and do a full system scan and remove everything. It sounds like you got scammed really. After that if you still have problems... I can't remember what it's called exactly, drawing a total blank... but it's a program that you run and it scans all system processes, the registry, etc, and dumps the information to a file, so you can post it to a forum and people go over it and figure out what virus/trojan/spyware is messing you up and give you instructions for removal.

The program you are thinking of is HijackThis.

Also, that spyware quake is a known fake, used to fool people into paying money for software that most likely does not work either.

You might want to scan your PC online with this:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/prom...id=eu_home_scan
I found out mailbot rootkit with it once, AdAware had no clue.

Or... *drumroll* Get a Mac!

Ain't I just great?

Eh... nope. Obscure, maybe.

That's the one. I don't know why I had a sudden memory lapse

If one were to actually compare Mac security to Windows security (or at least the security on my retardedly shielded and beefed up laptop of uberdoom), windows security >>>> Mac security. Of course this assumes you know what you're doing , but Windows certainly has very high security potential. The problem is that 99.9999% of PC users don't know what the heck they're doing.

Also, nobody uses macs, so why bother writing anything for them? Not to mention all the nice programming IDE's are't for Mac insofar as I know


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@ Alaskar: I had the -exact- same situation as you did a couple years back before I actually started caring about / studying computer security. The key is to be :censor:ing paranoid as all . I am totally not kidding about that, either.

What I'd do in your situation is get all the stuff you care about onto an external hard drive (or even an iPod, if you have one and know what to do with it), nuke the system (clean wipe it, reinstal windows, with wireless disabled and ethernet not plugged in of course. Yay paranoia), download the antivirus/antispyware software on a second computer, transfer the installers with a USB stick, instal and run, then move your files off the external HD, scan, then if nothing shows up on yet another round of scans you're ok to connect back to the outside world. Yay paranoia.

The problem is that once spywareish stuff gets in your comp, they can throw in stuff that the antivirus programs won't recognize, so even just downloading and using them may not be enough.

And then if you want to go -REALLY- hardcore, there are a few things in services.msc that you can tweak to close up a couple potential security holes, but I strongly reccomend you ask someone else to walk you through twiddling with it since it controls a lot of important system information.

As for my reccomended suite of software to have, I use Spybot S&D, Lavasoft's AdAware SE (I know they do the "same" thing but they have 2 different libraries of spyware definitions and I'm paranoid), some version of Norton Antivirus with a current subscription (AVG isn't half bad either, but I still prefer Norton), WebRoot's SpySweeper (really good realtime protection), and then get some system monitoring tool like WinBar so you can see your computer's processor and RAM usage at a glance.

EDIT: Also, if something seems a little off, you might want to scan through your list of current processes in the task manager and google search suspicious ones. just search for the name of the process and you're bound to get some useful information in there somehow.


*inhale* anyone here feel free to PM me if you've any questions.

And I'd really like to see an Ialie dragon talking video of her saying all THAT in one breath

That comic sums up the thoughts I have every time I see those commercials.

Exactly

Are you crazy? I think there's one single malware for MacOS out there in the wild, compared to the googleplexes of Windows virii.

My advice? Reformat, reinstall, use antivirus and a firewall, switch from IE to Opera or Firefox and from Outlook to Thunderbird or M2. With that and taking the obviouis precautions, you should be safe.

Or, if you're not into being doomed to reinstalling your OS every so often and haven't been conditioned to the point you're terrified of anything slightly different, try Linux. I recommend you give Ubuntu a try.

Hm... My system's been stable for 5 years now... *shrug*.

And Thunderbird > Outlook.

Virii.... heee. I'm going to bed now.

make sure you have a decent anti-virus that has both on demand and an 'active-shield' for internet, any removable medium and your windows registry. (and sorry to say this but AVG does not pass the attack tests)

Have your antivirus run a deepscan once a week for a home pc (let it run at night or when you are least likely to be doing something on your pc) or once a day for work pc (once again at a time you don't use your pc)

anti-virus that come out best are:
1. kaspersky anti-virus
2. McAfee enterpises anti-virus
3. Symantec Norton anti-virus
4. McAfee Anti-virus retail

I suggest either norton or mcafee since they supply you with special programs to remove worms and stuff right after a worldwide virus attack and they are known to work against the more complicated viruses.

Internet explorer is a deadtrap for phishing and pharming so get a less popular browser or an open source one (open source tends to be secured by people that wrote phishing programs in the first place). Good ones are Mozilla (though slow), mozilla firefox or opera. Don't remove your internet explorer though, since you'll need it for a select sites that use applications not supported in other browsers, when using internet explorer make sure your website in the adress bar is the same as the one in the status bar below the page, and the one you where expecting in the first place.

One anti-spyware is NOT enough. In general it's assumed you need 3 different anti spyware programs to have decent security.

good setup is:
spysweeper as primary
use Lavasoft's Ad-aware as secondary, spybot search and destroy as a secondary

Or make it easy and download hitman pro that will use Ad-Aware, SpySweeper, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster, Stinger all for you.

I managed to have a Windows system secured for a couple of years with no antivirus and no antispyware. It just takes not using IE and Outlook, which are deathtraps and suck anyway, and being careful when using the 'net. But then again, this was a while ago, so I make no guarantees whatsoever and suggest antiviral software. Even better, I suggest Linux.

The fact that there's an industry around 'securing' Windows systems definitely teaches us something about Windows.

Exactly.