Massive, painful virus attack
Despite all my safeguards, it looks like I've picked up some kind of virus last night as I was posting about the Ohio special election (which, thankfully, the Republican won). A "backdoor" message and virus alert from Norton flashed briefly and then it was the abyss. Multiple adware programs loading, pop-ups galore, and the CPU usage shot up to 100% meaning that I couldn't stop anything with the normal utilities.
In Task Manager, I shut down the processes using up 98% of the CPU but it was still dog-slow. A full virus scan revealed nothing and AdAware only picked up the malware such as Virtual Bouncer. Restarted in safe mode, which seemed OK, so at least I can get documents and pictures. But there's no way I'm turning my DSL back on until this is straightened out - (I'm on a borrowed computer right now.)
I'm going to try to get advice/patches/download fixes on this loaner but it's more likely that I'll interpret this attack as a sign that I should get professional help and, while I'm at it, update my processor speed to something in the GHz range.
So posting is going to be spotty over the next week or so. I'm visiting relatives over the weekend and I don't know how much access I'll have, unless I can find an Internet cafe in rural Pennsylvania. (Didn't there used to be a site called "Amish Tech Support"?).
These things happen.
8 comments:
apparently Amish Tech Support went the way of buggy whips and rotary phones..
http://weekendpundit.blogmosis.com/lastweekend/025216.html
but you can't keep a good blogger down.. here he is with his new site..
http://www.isfullofcrap.com/
I've got some stuff that will fix you up and make you faster. Call me.
Buy A Mac.
I wrote a page at:
http://campaigncis.com/safenetworking.html
Everyone I've secured using the information found there has not had a single successful intrusion afterward. Doesn't mean they won't ever, but it's worked well for me for quite some time.
Unfortunately, your machine may be to the point where someone will need to nuke it from orbit (wipe the HD and reinstall everything) before it gets back on its feet. It's worth trying the suggestions on my page, though.
When you say "despite all my precautions", just what precautions were you taking?
Norton System Works
AdAware
Search and Destroy
I fear the anti-virus definitions in the Norton program may have lapsed. Silly me, I figured my new DSL provider would block them.
Did you have a cable modem/dsl router in place? Were you using Internet Explorer and/or Outlook Express?
DSL router and Internet Explorer and I was on MSN.
So far (from another computer, natch) I've downloaded McAfee's Stinger and Grisoft's free AVG version. I don't want to turn my modem back on, if possible. If I do, Microsoft Security has a "malicious software removal tool" I'll try next.
After that, I'll probably give up and bring my computer to Best Buy or CompUSA.
Don't use IE if you can avoid it; download Firefox.
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