Have you found a virus?

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If one takes a look at different forums on the net, and here at the Lounge, there are a never ending line of people asking for help to get rid of viruses, worms, trojans, spyware etc. First, my thoughts go to all those who gets hit, and I try to help my friends and relatives, maybe haven’t got the chance so much in the Lounge.

I have never got any of my PC’s infected in any way. Last time I stumbled on a virus was in 1994 when some floppies got infected at the University and I found it while scanning them at home.

So my question is: when was the last time you found a virus, worm or spyware on your computer, or have you never found any?

I know corporations are not so interested in sharing such information, but for individuals it might be different, and it could be interesting since many here at the Lounge have great knowledge and experience from computers.

Regards,
Argus

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My PC has never been infected with a virus. I do receive viruses in e-mails, but they are taken care of automatically by my AV software.

When i first got an Internet connection, I didn’t install anti-spyware software immediately, so when I did after a week or two, I had already got some. Spybot S & D and AdAware removed it, and SpywareBlaster has prevented any new spyware from being installed – neither Spybot S & D, AdAware or (recently) Microsoft Anti Spyware have found anything since.

I keep all these programs updated religiously, and run full scans regularly – but as noted without ever finding anything.

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I used to do the monthly stats for our internet mail gateway (2500 staff), since I wrote the BATch files that checked for, downloaded and installed, new versions of the virus pattern files from the Sophos website, and I believe the highest figure was about 13000 infected messages trapped per month. Yes, an average of over 7 per hour. Great variations from month to month, though, depending on what was “out there” at the time.

John

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My response would read almost-exactly like that from Hans. I don’t THINK I’ve ever had an infection from a virus or trojan per se. Several months ago I got a “warning” from PC-cillin that it had found something, but that turned out to be what I’d call a false positive that had to do with a registry entry of Radmin, a remote control program I had installed. Also like Hans, I had quite a mess when I first started running spyware detection software, but nowadays the worst I ever see is a tracking cookie or two or three. I’ve got a funny feeling that having SPYWAREBLASTER installed is one of the best things I’ve done in recent times!

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Nope, I’ve been virus-free for four years. In 1991, I got something devastating when I tried downloading some Warez (still don’t know what it was) that played havoc with my system. NAV didn’t detect anything, but something was definitely wrong. Wound up reformatting and reinstalling Win98 — it was overdue, anyway. Needless to say, I don’t go looking for Warez anymore!

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I have not had a system infected by a virus since an Atari ST in the 1980s (got that virus from a coverdisc for an Atari magazine).

I have never had a problem with spyware either with the only items being detected in the last few years being false-positives and tracking cookies. I use Spybot S & D, AdAware, Microsoft Anti-Spyware and SpywareBlaster.

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Not aware I’ve had one since purchasing my first (at home) computer 18 months ago. Not understanding XP, I bought Woody’s Windows XP for Dummies – that led me to the Lounge and, subsequently, to Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D (with Teatimer set) and, latterly, MSAS. My firewall and AV is handled by NIS (2004) and despite some adverse comments I see from time to time re Symantec, I’ve not had any cause (yet!) to think about changing. Occasionally (not very often), Norton pings me and says that a backdoor trojan is trying to access my system, but other than that I think I’m clean – having said that of course, I’ve probably now tempted providence!
Keith

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By “when was the last time you found a virus…” I assume you mean an active one (rather than one that may have been quarantined or in an email that hadn’t been opened)?

A few years here, but I couldn’t be more precise than that.

Interesting that it is only those who claim to have been clean for a while that are answering your post so far – I suspect you may be expecting too much for many of us to admit to practising unsafe computing…..

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I have never had a “Infected” machine at home, I have been running a AV program since day one, using DOS.
I have had a infected machine at WORK, but that was because the company would NOT install ALL updates and they (the updates) had to be tested by the IT department. Some times the updates were 3 and 4 weeks old by the time we got them. Shortly, I found a way to bypass the IT updates and get my own. My work machine(s) was never infected after that and the IT department never figured out why.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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“By “when was the last time you found a virus…” I assume you mean an active one …”

Yes and no … , I did wonder how I should put the question, infection by virus is one thing, and finding one with an AV-program is another. I was interested in how common this is, and maybe if someone had something interesting to tell. So asking: have your PC ever been infected, would possible only end with: no, no, no, yes, no…

Also, since I am not even finding one with my AV-tools (or spyware with my other tools for that matter), I was a wondering how common it is among some Loungers. The only thing I find is high activity in the firewall every now and then when we have one of those outbreaks.

Guess I have to take a walk on the wild side if I want to find some virus.

Thanks to everyone who has answered so far.

Regards,
Argus

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There is a gap between the time many email attachment viruses are discovered in the wild and the time there is an AV update available to halt them on the mail server. I often will get several samples from around the world during that interval. Most I discard, but some I have kept in a PST file for testing. Fortunately, so far, the “social engineering” designed to trick me into opening any of those attachments hasn’t worked. Let’s hope the virus writers never figure me out.

In reviewing our AV logs over the past five years, I have seen one or two really horrendous infections that seemed to lead back to Internet Explorer, presumably to exploits of unpatched vulnerabilities. This shouldn’t happen on “work related” sites, but… anyway, keeping Windows patches up to date has become a much bigger priority in the past two years. Hopefully between mail server protection and closing down weaknesses in IE/Windows, we’ve covered our bases.

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I have also found plenty in quarrantine, and in email attachments, but not been infected for many years.

StuartR

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I haven’t been infected since the days before AV software was as necessary as the OS (’97 or ’98). I was “caught” by a Sub-Seven Trojan inserted in some silly, free game program I downloaded from the net. Once I knew I was infected (porno wallpaper was substituted for my Webshots picture, the PC would constantly try to connect to the internet and “Someone” was trying to get me to respond to insulting dialogue boxes they were putting up on my screen), I disabled my internet connection and started moving all my personal data and identification off the system. In the process, I found an address in my address book that I didn’t put there. I removed it and all the trouble stopped. Dumb luck !!! I got Norton AV the next day and cleaned house. I now run it along with Zone Alarm, Adaware se, Spybot S&D, SpywareBlaster and Webroot’s Spysweeper. Have had many attempts over the years since then, but nothing gets in.

IMHO corporations should be the first to want this mess cleaned up and be sharing infromation. While we lose some time and sometimes even some important personal data, this garbage costs the corporate word ten’s if not hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity and computer system cleanup after just one worm gets into their system.

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Had a couple of trojans back in the mists of time when I was running Win98 (about 2001 I think), but they were quarantined by NAV & deleted ok. Not had anything since as all the machines in the house are locked down so much (apart from my account ‘cos I trust me!) that it’s extremely difficult for the kids to do something stoopid.

Still get the occasional dodgy attachment but nothing’s ever been active (that I’m aware of!).

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it’s extremely difficult for the kids to do something stoopid.

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[/indent]Up until I read that I had you down as a savvy mother… How my delusions are shattered!

John

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Fair point John! Okay, what I mean is…. it’s easy for them to do something stoopid, it’s just a lot less likely that the systems will ALLOW their stoopidity to do something that could cause harm to my computers!

Ooh, pedants!!

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Active viruses? Not in the last 20-odd years because I’ve always insisted on antivirus protection, even at work and even before it was assumed to be needed, and also because I am a highly suspicious email recipient who automatically deletes mail from anyone I don’t know. Spyware, yes, occasionally one slips in, which is why I run scans regularly. Even with active protection, it’s very easy to pick up malware, so I never declare myself free of that.

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Virus: Never been infected at home. Can’t recall ever having one quarantined at home. Up until recently, I used a very old version of NAV (version 4), but updated the definitions weekly. It didn’t have email scanning, but I had Earthlink which caught several viruses before they were sent to me. I have never opened an email attachment directly. I always save to disk, scan, & then open (or run). I had one Word macro virus at work in 1995 from a floppy. My organization was worse than Dave’s. They didn’t have any anti-virus installed. With my new machine, I’m using AVG, which has email scanning & updates automatically daily.

Spyware: I regularly get some tracking cookies (like my online bank) & I’ve had some false positives from Pest Patrol (free version). I use Ad-Aware, Spybot, Pest Patrol, & just recently, MSAS.

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My organization was worse than Dave’s

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[/indent]The city of Los Angeles ???

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County. The bigger they are… .

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To add more, we had a complete division that would NOT run an AV program because the program prevented one from using the machine(s). The machines were so infected that the machines were not usable is the AV program was running. The AV program was set so that only the IT department could run the removal part. The IT department wanted to know who and when a machine was infected. We in another division did NOT receive any electronic data, only hard copy from them.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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8-10 years, from 2 different jobs, I discoverd virues in Word doc files that i had brought home on a floppy. Other than that nothing. If you don’t ever open email attachments (or if you must, at least check them with AV scan first) and you’ll probably be OK.

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