Has your Computer Been Hijacked?

S

steellover

Joined
Nov 19, 2004
Messages
236
Have you ever had your computer hijacked by a Trojan virus of some sort?

This has happened to me a couple of times. Once, AOL stopped my membership. I checked my e-mail and my computer had been used to send out spam.

This finally stopped, more or less, when I convinced my wife NOT to read every e-mail she got from anyone.

The last trojan cut my internet off, and I had to re-format.

How about you? When I finally heard that they were sending spammers to jail, I cheered. Since then, all I usually get is the "Nigerian bank scam." However, at least I am savvy to it, but some of the phoney Internet sites look mighty real.
 
steellover,
I think you might get more input on this topic over at the Community Center.
 
The thing is, trojans and other viruses don't happen by themselves. You have to let them in. Use a firewall when online, don't open e-mail attachments unless expecting something specific, don't share files with strangers, make sure that 'free' downloads are from trustworthy sources. Simple stuff like that. I haven't had a computer virus in years.

-Bob
 
get a good anti virus program and keep it updated... I use Nortons 2005 system works and it seems to work pretty good with the newest windows xp sp2 firewall...

also,
You can get a virus just from clicking on a JPEG pic on a web site these days.. I agree that they just don;t get on there by them selves.. but can be transported to a system other ways besides just email attachments.. .

~Jeff
 
Another good thing to do is sign up with a web-based e-mail service (hotmail, Yahoo, Fastmail) and give THAT e-mail out to websites you subscribe to, not the one your ISP gives you...only give that one to family and friends.

Oh and quit using AOL (except for coasters).
 
Get a good firewall/antivirus. I highly Recommend trying EZ antivirus or EZ armor (antivirus & firewall) from Computer Associates- it is the best I have ever used.
Here is a link to a free 1 year trial:
:thumbup:

EDIT: Mcaffe and Norton Both suck- I have had both, and they are nearly useless.
For instance, A trojan was detected by Norton, so I ran a full scan. . .hours later it finishes (finally) and comes up empty. I download a trial version of EZ antivirus, it finds it right away and zaps the trojan. Never had another problem since :thumbup:
 
Basics:
Don't open those "Britney_Spears_XXX.jpg.exe" you get from unknown e-mail addresses.
Stay away from unknown ".ru" ".sk" etc websites, other borderline sites, and anything coming from them.
Stop using Internet Explorer.
Check and install Windows updates.

Optional:
use a firewall.
unless your computer is used as a server or other particular reasons, you should avoid fixed ip address.

NB: antiviruses are useless if not regularly updated. Most of them have an auto-update.

Basic tips should be enough. I use a firewall: it hardly detects anything. Most of my friends don't use any antivirus, nor firewall, most of them never had any problem, following these basic safety rules.
Don't know if dumping IE helps a lot for viruses and trojan but running Firefox or Opera will (at least) get rid of most spyware (which can be considered as some sort of Trojan).

If you want to go for a firewall or antivirus, get anything BUT Norton.

My 2 cents.
 
The one time my firewall stalled out, and I didn't restart my computer, I left it running overnight, and somebody used my cable connection to spam over 5000 emails. My provider wasn't happy, and shut down my connection, but I got up and running in a day and everything ended well.

The one time...
 
 
steellover said:
I have had all that and some still get in.

McAfee works better than Norton.
Click to expand...

I don't really like McAfee products because I've had a couple of annoying experiences trying to uninstall them. They update the registry when you install but not when you uninstall so you get those annoying messages when booting, like "Unable to find a critical file ARHOOK32.DLL". Otherwise I have no complaints.
 
I use AVG free antivirus and it works very well.

I combine it with Zonealarm and since setting them up I haven't had a virus since.

Another BIG way to avoid Trojans is avoid using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express for your e-mail client.
 
mycroftt said:
I don't really like McAfee products because I've had a couple of annoying experiences trying to uninstall them. They update the registry when you install but not when you uninstall so you get those annoying messages when booting, like "Unable to find a critical file ARHOOK32.DLL". Otherwise I have no complaints.
Click to expand...



I had the same problem, drove me nuts until I got our IT guys to fix it.

I like Norton.


Steve
 
I use AVG as well. Zonealarm for my firewall. Use both Spybot and Ad-Aware for other "attachments" that can show up. All of these are free and work very well. Wish I could get rid of some the junk email/spam I'm getting, though. At least on of the programs is labelling "Suspected Junk Mail" so I can at least delete it. At work, we use Corporate Editions of Norton's and SpyBot - we are pretty required to run Spybot a minimum of once a week in our division - most of us do a huge amount of research work - I do a lot of in the interface security area, so my time is largely spend inside MSDN. We also have mulitple firewalls in place, so we get virtually no spam at the office :D

- gord
 
I use AVG as well. Zonealarm for my firewall. Use both Spybot and Ad-Aware for other "attachments" that can show up. All of these are free and work very well.
Click to expand...
Ditto here. Additionally I use MailWasher to browse my mail while it's still on the server. I can delete or preview my e-mail without downloading it to the computer first. E-mails with attachments I delete immediately.

-Bob
 
About four weeks ago something crawled off of the internet and tried to turn my PC into a zombie server. It got past ad aware and vet, and I only managed to stop it because I had altered the dcom cnfg settings.
 
The BEST Firewall is a NAT router. Linksys or SMC are both good, but I'm not that crazy about DLink.

Also if you have an old PC and a couple of spare NICS kicking around, you could download and install ipcop (which is a linux distrp specifically configured for the job) and voila! one cheap firewall!
 
Happened to my wife on her laptop. Kept shutting down after a few minutes. Finally got her to admit that she opened an email attachment and that's when the problems began.

She has norton internet security, adaware, windows firewall activated and a linksys router. Finally had to reload the original disk that came with the computer to cure the problem.

Do not open attachments unless they have been scanned with anti-virus software and only come from trusted sources. Even a friend's attachment could contain a trojan, worm, or virus.
 
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