So I got Trojaned today.
Jan. 16th, 2010 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redneckgaijinStill don't know how.
But I had a close brush with the Ctrl Center virus- close, as in the thing had actually begun installing itself and was already throwing up fake virus-software warnings, one of which I made the mistake of clicking. They offered to "update my registry" for only, oh, $59.95 for one year- or (oh bargain of bargains!) $79.95 for two years.
Thankfully, about five weeks ago I spent most of a day grabbing the free version of AVG Anti-Virus so I'd be PCI compliant for WLP's credit card processing. I'd previously had Defender Pro 5-in-1, but their 2009 update pretty much made the computer unusable- interrupting EVERYTHING, bar none, for virus scans and defrags that slowed the machine to a crawl. I'd uninstalled that and, for pretty near all of 2009, had no virus protection aside from being on dialup in an increasingly broadband world.
And I figure dialup, plus AVG Anti-Virus, saved me today. Ctrl Center never got a chance to fully load, never (so far as I can find) attacked my startup menu or loadup task file (which is what it does- it locks you out of your computer until you pony up the cash or, more sensibly, hand the machine over to someone who will charge you a $100 You Absolute Idiot fee)... indeed, one virus scan, destroy, and reboot later, there doesn't appear to be any trace of the thing left on this machine.
(I hope.)
The thing is, though... I haven't opened any dodgy attachments. I've been browsing pretty much entirely legit and trusted sites. The only place I can think of this could have come from is deviantArt, where I've been trying like hell to catch up on a year and a half of artwork from hundreds of artists I was following at some point or other. And despite this, this weasel-worm Trojian came that close to causing me massive grief and, possibly, a trip to Houston to get the damn thing working again.
(And I am getting towards looking for a new machine- this one was a fan donation/gift, and it's served very well, but it's still a 2006-era cheap-end Dell, and it's beginning to show its age. Especially the fan on the power supply, which makes bad-bearing whines at deafening volumes at unpredictable times, the only cure for which is a cold reboot.)
Anyway... in the VERY near future I'm getting some store-bought antivirus software. (Sorry, AVG, I like you, but I just don't have the pipe to download your better big brother.)
And if you get an unfamiliar warning message from the control bar on your machine... DON'T click it, DON'T restart your computer, and DO get AVG (free download) or whatever antivirus software you have working on it ASAP.
But I had a close brush with the Ctrl Center virus- close, as in the thing had actually begun installing itself and was already throwing up fake virus-software warnings, one of which I made the mistake of clicking. They offered to "update my registry" for only, oh, $59.95 for one year- or (oh bargain of bargains!) $79.95 for two years.
Thankfully, about five weeks ago I spent most of a day grabbing the free version of AVG Anti-Virus so I'd be PCI compliant for WLP's credit card processing. I'd previously had Defender Pro 5-in-1, but their 2009 update pretty much made the computer unusable- interrupting EVERYTHING, bar none, for virus scans and defrags that slowed the machine to a crawl. I'd uninstalled that and, for pretty near all of 2009, had no virus protection aside from being on dialup in an increasingly broadband world.
And I figure dialup, plus AVG Anti-Virus, saved me today. Ctrl Center never got a chance to fully load, never (so far as I can find) attacked my startup menu or loadup task file (which is what it does- it locks you out of your computer until you pony up the cash or, more sensibly, hand the machine over to someone who will charge you a $100 You Absolute Idiot fee)... indeed, one virus scan, destroy, and reboot later, there doesn't appear to be any trace of the thing left on this machine.
(I hope.)
The thing is, though... I haven't opened any dodgy attachments. I've been browsing pretty much entirely legit and trusted sites. The only place I can think of this could have come from is deviantArt, where I've been trying like hell to catch up on a year and a half of artwork from hundreds of artists I was following at some point or other. And despite this, this weasel-worm Trojian came that close to causing me massive grief and, possibly, a trip to Houston to get the damn thing working again.
(And I am getting towards looking for a new machine- this one was a fan donation/gift, and it's served very well, but it's still a 2006-era cheap-end Dell, and it's beginning to show its age. Especially the fan on the power supply, which makes bad-bearing whines at deafening volumes at unpredictable times, the only cure for which is a cold reboot.)
Anyway... in the VERY near future I'm getting some store-bought antivirus software. (Sorry, AVG, I like you, but I just don't have the pipe to download your better big brother.)
And if you get an unfamiliar warning message from the control bar on your machine... DON'T click it, DON'T restart your computer, and DO get AVG (free download) or whatever antivirus software you have working on it ASAP.
