what do you do about viruses... window 8.1
rjo__
Posts: 2,114
I downloaded some free software... I know... I shouldn't do that... Then it all started. At first it was really kind of cute... pop ups flying unexpectedly across my screen. People trying to sell me stuff ... like I am going to buy something suggested by malware. Then bogus notices from HP and Firefox...etc etc. And then finally I got a popup that wouldn't go away and I couldn't use my computer. I bought AVG... it says I don't have a care in the world... and the popups are gone... except those from AVG:) "here let us sell you some software to get rid of those pop-ups so we can put our popups there...
My computer is fine except now I can see a command window pop up and go away and it keeps asking me what programI want to run javascript from... both of these symptoms were the original symptom at the beginning. I've looked through Microsofts help site and several other forums... doesn't seem to be a solution for it. I suspect this is the trojan that let the other viruses in... does that mean that so long as I keep cleaning things up with AVG I really don't have to do anything else. Good luck to anyone who thinks he can get anything from me. I only have one debit card and I don't keep money on it.
What do you use? Are you having the same issues?
My computer is fine except now I can see a command window pop up and go away and it keeps asking me what programI want to run javascript from... both of these symptoms were the original symptom at the beginning. I've looked through Microsofts help site and several other forums... doesn't seem to be a solution for it. I suspect this is the trojan that let the other viruses in... does that mean that so long as I keep cleaning things up with AVG I really don't have to do anything else. Good luck to anyone who thinks he can get anything from me. I only have one debit card and I don't keep money on it.
What do you use? Are you having the same issues?
Comments
Then go get malwarebytes free edition too. This one seems very robust. I've had very good luck using it for a quick cleanup scan.
Run the combofix and do what it says. Run as administrator. (right click)
After that completes, uninstall whatever you are using now. Take your machine offline during this, and be sure and get rid of the toolbars and services AVG likely included. http://www.pchell.com/virus/uninstallavg.shtml
Install malwarebytes and do the complete scan.
If it finds something, use the delete / quarantine function, or google for a removal tool. If it does find something, run Combofix again.
This combination nails a lot of stuff. I'm 9/10 doing it. If I go a second time, I scan in safe mode.
Then look at this: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/microsoft-security-essentials-help#microsoft-security-essentials-help=windows-8&v2h=win7tab1&v3h=winvistatab1&v4h=winxptab1
Once that is done, you should be able to use Microsoft Security Essentials in the form of an enhanced Windows Defender. They included that with 8.1, and it's good software.
Microsoft Security Essentials is all I've used since they produced it. Works a treat on windows 7. Make sure the real time protection is turned on, and make sure you've got it updated, and set your updates to update, or your definitions get old. If you don't want to do that, check it every week.
If that doesn't get your machine sorted out, then I recommend hijackthis, a program that can help you to find out what is running and nuke it a piece at a time. Too much for a dialog here. Painful days, if you get to this point.
Also, right after you get through your first malwarebytes scan successfully, it's not a bad idea to revisit your browsers and get rid of or disable anything you don't strictly need.
Going forward, I find it very handy to setup one browser with script blocking software, no java, no flash, etc... That's the one you use when you are exploring new things. Setup another one with all your trusted favorites. Never use Internet Explorer, but for the odd bank or something that just has to have it.
Mine does, and I just don't bank online.
If you want, you can also setup a virtual machine with a browser in it. I have an old XP VM that I used for years for this purpose. Browse with it, and just keep a fresh snapshot so that if the ugly happens, you revert and don't worry. If I'm on the "darknetz" or in places I KNOW are not above board, I use the VM for sure. XP is starting to not work for this purpose, and I'll need to do a Win 7 one. Linux works for this purpose in a pinch, but the little goodies take forever to setup. Codecs for video, etc...
Common sense about what I download seems to work.
-Phil
The incentives are all wrong for the third party company. They always add something, it just don't quite get the task done
.
With MSE, no news is good news. It just works and mostly you don't think about it much.
System Restore is killer, if you allocate more space than it ships with, and if you have made a restore point recently.
I forgot. Uninstall malwarebytes when you are done scanning. It's not bad software to keep, but it's got the same general drawbacks the rest of them do.
Then make sure Windows Defender (MSE) is running, with the real time protection on, and definitions updated.
It's my opinion, as of the release of MSE, one degrades their machine by installing third party, or two at once, etc...
Of course, those guys who make AV software aren't happy about it, but hey. Microsoft is actually the only one with the access to the OS and the big profile of all their anon user data to really impact this. The result has seen the third party companies add on a lot of stuff and nag the Smile out of people with FUD to keep 'em on board, playing on the "hate Microsoft" bit way more than they should.
YMMV
Today's special!!!
Yeah, I do QVC duty from time to time myself. I like to enjoy a podcast while the sound on QVC is down. ;P
After a virus/trojan infestation the best thing to wipe your drives and reinstall from scratch.
Of course whilst you are at it consider installing a more robust OS, like Linux say
+1
Every strange behaviour of my Linux based systems/OSes was caused by me or by dying hardware and not by mean invaders from outside.
I started using Linux when Linus announced his boot/root-0.11 floppy pair in comp.os.minix somewhen in the early 90s...
I've heard of a ton of people extolling the virtues of MSE.
Unfortunately, while that may have been true a couple of years ago, its currently regarded as Smile.
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2015/01/27/security-essentials-fails-antivirus-test.aspx
Go to Wilder's Security Other Antivirus forum, and there is a lot of better testing and discussion about free options.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/av-comparatives-real-world-protection-test-march-june-2015.377936/
For me personally, there has got to be some bias in that I do use a VM for uses that would present serious exposure, with most other Internet uses being tepid at best. MSE isn't seeing anything like what these guys are testing for.
I find it extremely difficult to rate AVG over MSE on any metric. One bias is just how much Smile AVG wants to do. Another one is the number of machines I've dealt with and replaced it with MSE on without seeing additional incidents.
Given this data, @rjo you need to think about a few things!
I think I'm biased due to my use profile. Really, my own exposure to threats is a lot more limited than I realize.
Here's how I do things:
One thing is those free downloads. I very strongly suggest you get and learn to use a VM. You can dry run this stuff and save a lot of grief. Or don't do it.
Get good at the plain OS. The fewer utilities the better.
If you aren't expecting something, it's a threat. Treat it as such. It's still a potential threat, but much less of one otherwise.
Use the VM for those late night trips through lesser known parts of the Internet. Or don't use windows to do it. The vast majority of my "off label" Internet use is on a UNIX of some sort.
Consider a "work" machine and a play machine. If the play machine is setup with good restore points, you can almost always take a hit, revert back, then reconsider what you are doing. Of course, this assumes you know you've gotten snagged on something. That's not always easy.
Or give Bitdefender and or Kapersky a try. (they do not use excessive domain blocking to improve on their percentages, unlike Panda)
The line seems to break on AVG. I still think that software is Smile, but apparently MSE is too, and worse. That bias may be due to the large number of AVG free users I've cleaned up after.
So, it's your credit card, or modify how you do things.
Mostly I quit doing that free tech support gig a while back. But, I've got a couple problem people I still am dealing with. I think I'm going to put them on Bitdefender to see what happens for a while. MSE has performed well for them, but that's also in tandem with some education and modified user behavior too.
YMMV on this stuff, but I would give the data Koehler put here some weight in your thoughts.
Yeah. Totally.
Except for when that does not make sense. I need to use Windows every single day. Engineering and Enterprise applications insure that's true. Hate it. One can do the "work / play" machine bit and help a lot, but it's just not always possible / practical to step away from Windows. Heck, moving to a Mac is not often possible, but if you can afford it, that's the best "play" machine, and what I use personally the vast majority of the time, reserving Linux for the hard core risk type activities.
Really, this advocacy should also consist of "get a Linux Virtual Machine" and use it for a lot of things. Some setup, and a shared folder or two later, maybe Unity mode if you are running VMWARE, and you won't even hardly notice the thing. It's just an app and a coupla windows.
After a virus/trojan infestation the best thing to wipe your drives and reinstall from scratch.
Of course whilst you are at it consider installing a more robust OS, like Linux say
Of course, when you reinstall Windows... you have to reinstall and reconfigure all your other proprietary software after that. So expect to spend additional time for all that.... unless you have Ghost or some other imaged backup available.
With Linux, I purposely keep my OS on a separate partition from my /home and anytime I reinstall, all those free applications just get taken care of along the way. The whole process takes less time and is far more less tedious.
+++++++++++++++
I can't seem to see why anyone would install a Linux Virtual Machine inside a Windows OS for virus protection. When the Windows requires a re-install, the Linux Virtual Machine is just another tedious task to add to your reinstall list.
I do a dual boot -- Windows on its own partitions and Linux on their own. If I really need Windows software, the Windows systems is there. And I generally do my less conservative stuff on the Linux side as I just can't seem to get a virus in Linux... at least I haven't so far.
Virtual Machines are tedious and unnecessary if you already purchased a computer that came with Windows. And with a dual boot, you can shift to Linux to stay on line and in touch while your Windows side is down. In fact, in Linux I can look into my Windows NTFS partitions, view documents, and carry on with a lot of office work that might otherwise be impossible with a downed Windows.
Nonetheless, I am sure there are some loyal Windows users that will continue to justify its validity.
When Windows commits suicide or catches a bad cold it's just a case of rolling back to a VM image snapshot with OS, applications and all.
Data of course lives on different machines.
Now a days I try to take the approach that everything is disposable. The OS can get corrupted, the drives can fail the PC can be consumed by fire. No problem, spin up Debian on a new one, fetch configs, odd applications, data from the distributed backups, and continue.
inside a Windows OS for virus protection. When the Windows requires a
re-install, the Linux Virtual Machine is just another tedious task to
add to your reinstall list."
No. It's super easy. Load VM software, open VM, done.
And the point of doing that kind of thing is to make sure you don't have to do a reinstall. Frankly, since XP SP1, I've not had to reinstall Windows. I have a few machines, the XP one is retired, and the other two are Win7, and Win8.1
The XP one went the whole way without a reinstall. I got it sometime around when P1 was released. Used it, until it retired. Boots fast, runs fine, and it's just too old to be online. But it's got some legacy things on it I may want from time to time, so I just boot it every so often and call it good. This thread reminds me I need to make a VM out of that one, and then hack it so the legacy stuff doesn't know about it all.
I got good at that due to MCAD applications centering on Windows. Some now will run on a UNIX, and one very high end one I use runs on some commercial UNIX, Mac, Linux, Windows. Not cheap though. Windows is the best platform to run on though, and the user share is like a few percent non-windows.
The biggest problem I see with Windows is people just loading stuff. That's just not a good idea. Run it vanilla, put the things that matter on there, and then run it for a really long time. The other thing I see is people, myself included sometimes, not really respecting how the user profile works. Load a coupla gigs into the wrong places and the OS interactive performance will degrade significantly.
BTW: Diskkeeper will do boot time defrag, and it can keep the boot files optimized as they were from the factory. The defrag got integrated into Windows proper, and that works. But, if you want to keep the system perky, that product feature is something one needs to pay for. What happens is it's all setup at factory. As updates happen, the file writes move things around, and it ends up seeking way more, booting more slowly, etc... That's what you buy a license of Diskkeeper for. Pay $30 or so, and never, ever pay again, and never ever load the OS again either. (assuming best practices otherwise)
Now that I'm on SSD drives for most things, I don't need that. Physical disks do benefit though.
All that said, I don't like Windows very much. Never have. But, I didn't get sucked in to that mess and just optimized my use of it. No worries.
That's just as valid of a choice as it is to move onto a Linux or Mac is. Early on, I setup on Linux, IRIX and Win32. Learned a ton during those days. Replaced IRIX with MAC OS, and have continued on.
Going all open is cool. Being effective at cross platform pays me much better. That's due to my niche, and others will vary.
As for this? "Nonetheless, I am sure there are some loyal Windows users that will continue to justify its validity."
Laughable. Seriously.
I am an open advocate. You've read it here often. Good stuff. But we don't have open solutions for a lot of things today. Important, expensive things. And most of those important, expensive things run on Windows.
Hard truth there. Sorry. It sucks.
You want to participate in the major vertical markets? Areo, Energy, Medical, Auto? Guess what? You are going to be running Windows for anything beyond some code. Embedded enjoys a nice separation from the rest of the process. Consider yourself lucky. The vast majority of participants are going to be running Windows whether they like it or not.
And that's valid. You want to fly on the airplane, drive the car, etc? Windows does that. Sadly. There are some chunks of UNIX out there, and Mac OS too. I can't share what Apple does, for example, but it only involved Windows for a short time.
Secondly, for really high end advanced, integrated product design, engineering, CAM, analysis, product management, windows dominates. Over 90 percent share. And it works well too, if best practices are followed.
The open world is awesome. But it's no where near inclusive enough to even think about invalidating Windows at this point in time. For those of us who can step away, great! But do know that's absolutely not the norm for the vast majority of players in the market and industry today.
I don't like that state of things, but I'm also not going to go head in the sand about it either.
Why not Linux? Hardware support, specialized user input devices, and overall UX experience remain sub par compared to both Windows and Mac. Touch is becoming important to people too. I don't think I've ever even seen a touch capable Linux environment. Would love to give that a test drive actually. Android doesn't count.
The secondary reason is the vast majority of people I would interact with simply can't relate to it, and if you see the bit below, you would understand why that matters big.
Parallels has been ahead on this for the last 3 years. The guys at VMWARE seem to be catching up.
That's a good thing. More and better choices opening up real quick!
One of the tasks I do on contract is demonstration / proof of concept / pre-sales type work. It needs to sing, and be stable as I'll nearly always be pushing it in some fashion. People don't pay for the easy ones, or they don't pay well. Often, to me, that's the same thing.
Running native matters. They need to see it as they will be using / implementing it. I have had two, count 'em one and the other one, Linux engagements where people were serious about actually using Linux for MCAD / engineeering type tasks. That, compared to a few thousand on Windows, couple hundred on IRIX in the day, and it's in the tens on Mac OS.
So, 20 odd years of doing that, and I can nail a Windows, Linux, Mac environment. God I still miss IRIX. Yes, it was that good.
I will backup regularly, and I'll use VMs for a variety of things, but I rarely reinstall. Just hate it. Once I've established the right kind of environment, I run it a very, very, very long time. Anything else costs me, and I've got better things to do.
Finally, the stuff that pays funds the fun stuff that does not. I center in on a coupla machines, and everything happens on them. It's most efficient, and I maximize my time for things I want to do. Linux to me is a tool I can use well, and do use from time to time, but it's not where I need it for daily driving.
I put server into a VM all the time. Runs a treat on Linux / Mac OS. Here's an interesting thing!
Recommended physical RAM. Say I've got a server that is sized at 8GB. Pre SSD, it made sense to allocate most of that amount of RAM to make it run well. This meant packing a machine full of RAM to support server, browsers, client apps, CAD, etc... Ugh.
One day, I compressed the whole works and cut the RAM allocation in half. Turns out, a multi-core CPU can uncompress quickly enough to improve overall throughput. I could run VMs in half the RAM and get as good, or slightly better performance! Cool beans.
With an SSD, I can run a VM in a small fraction of the real, physical RAM and it's actually faster most of the time! Crazy!
The one I just setup a week ago wants 6GB or more RAM. It's running on 1GB, and i've taken in down to as little as 750Mbytes of RAM. Runs crazy good, and it looks like 1.5GB is the sweet spot in all of that.
Interesting isn't it?
**This is not to say it's some magic RAM savings thing. It's not. A fully loaded server sized at some RAM size is going to need that RAM when users do what users do. But, what I think happens is the VM OS pages in the active stuff, which the VM maps to physical RAM, and the rest, though active in the sense that the VM OS isn't paging it out, isn't seen as such by the VM, which maps that onto disk. Result is active code only in physical RAM, quick pages for all else, very efficient.
The best way to clean your system is to do an offline scan using a virus Rescue CD. You can download the AVG Rescue CD for free if you don't have access to a Rescue CD from Norton or another vendor. It will take many hours to scan your system depending on how many files you have.
http://www.avg.com/us-en/download.prd-arl
I prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 so I don't know what software works with it but I like Spybot for spyware, though the free version doesn't automatically update, and ZoneAlarm for a free firewall (Only the firewall, not with anti-virus). The free version of Malwarebytes doesn't automatically update or scan either.
If you keep an eye out you can sometimes get these programs for free after rebate especially from Fry's.
Many vendors such as Norton have a free online scan so if you need some links just ask.
Here is what I've been doing the last 5+ years, and I've had no issues of note.
0. If you're coming from a hacked incident, get a LiveCD Linux, and do a thorough disk format/MBR delete etc.
1. Do a nice fresh install of Windows, Windows Update, install personal software
2. Download Sandboxie Free, create a Shortcut for your browsers that start them Sandboxied
3. Install NoScript (FF) or ScriptNo (Chrome?)
3. Download free Macrium Reflect, and burn an image of your Win partition to a spare USB or drive
At this point, I can rebuild my entire system - data, in about 5 minutes
4. Data back-up should be more than just a semi-permanent USB drive attached to your computer....
Note- As Potato-head says, unusual surfing can easily be done via a nice LiveCD version of Mint 17.2 on a USB3 drive.
Or even easier I guess, would be a simple VirtualBox running the same.
I d/l a lot of program/tools, though usually from reputable sites, or better known sites, like sublimetext.com, and so far have run across very, very few if any real issues caught by an A/V.
In fact, I've run 'unprotected' for months with just Sandboxie and NoScript.
Anytime I have a question about something I've downloaded, I usually jump to here:
https://virusscan.jotti.org/en and have it checked by every A/V on the market.
This may not be much help if you've an active infection, however I would NEVER continue running on a system that had been FIXED. I would migrate my Data somewhere, and just clean and reinstall a known good and continue on.
BTW, there are a number of online scanners, I think I tested Panda recently as it was well recommened, along with some others.
Also MBAM, Hitman, Spybot, and, and, darn my own ECC RAM appears to be decaying.
You can spend a lot of time checking, scanning and fixing, and still end up with someone's sneaky exploit hiding somewhere.
Really, the only compassionate thing to do, is nuke it from orbit.
Regarding PandaAV, it is just another red flag to me. That AV application has been linked to Scientology, so I am wary.
http://www.skeptictank.org/gen3/gen01948.htm
AV software protection and the possibility of clean recovery never managed to give me the kind of secure results that I had hoped for. I grew weary of throwing more money at the problem.
I do wonder if Windows is any more economical and secure than Apple if one really requires the additional access to graphics and video. Either way, I just am happy to keep my money and use Blender, Image Magik, and GIMP in Linux at no cash outlay.
I do admit there are enterprises out there that just have to use Windows to keep their income stream. I do not. I would be tempted to use Apple iOS instead as it is UNIX based, like Linux -- and I do grasp how security works so well in UNIX based systems.
You got told your comments were laughable, because they quite simply are outside of your industry niche. Programmers and many embedded hardware types can get away with Linux and prefer it for reasons well known here. People, who aren't those types, often have very different constraints. I've dealt with hundreds of companies up and down the west coast running windows for entirely valid reasons. And their product design or manufacturing processes incorporate software that runs on Windows. Simple as that.
The companies who make that software either don't do Linux and Mac ports, or if they do, they do feature limited / UI broken ones to satisfy a contract obligation or meet a check box type requirement, and they are very expensive. Running linux for mechanical CAD gets you nothing. Seriously.
Putting Windows in a VM on Linux?
If one is a developer or somebody else who can use software native to Linux, this is a great idea. However, if it's done just to have Linux as the host, what that generally does is add cost as now administration / IT has two operating systems to administer, not just one, for the same application pool, and if that application is demanding of the machine in the area of graphics, all doing this does is add a performance reduction layer and potential glitchy, unstable display. Meaningful benefits are few.
...which is why it's not done.
Want to know why the vast majority of working professionals are on Windows?
Office, Outlook in particular, and Microsoft Exchange on the back end. Shared calendars, notices, and some other basic things used in day to day business have no transparent replacements. Trust me, I've tried on this multiple times.
To a person who is a content / data source, this may not matter. Embedded is this way for sure, with many working on contract, or in discrete ways compared to the rest of the product development process. Graphics / web / programming works this way too. Linux is seen regularly, as is Mac OS. For an industry example, movie post production and CGI all center on Linux too, and how that came to pass is a great story involving SGI IRIX, some deal with Microsoft, and a general revolt to Linux that did those guys a lot of good.
For people who interact with others, being both a source and receiving party, the story is very different. Even simple things like a calendar invite, or inability to map events to a shared repository, or sync up with other systems is a deal breaker.
There are companies out there, who can avoid the higher end product design tools, who can run Linux or Mac. Great! But the really important stuff isn't there yet, and for mechanical CAD, there is no meaningful open software yet. We are decades from that actually happening, and it's due to complex geometry kernels that have millions of man hours into them. Those programs center on windows, and can be run in VM's, and I know some pretty high profile companies doing just that too. A couple of the names would surprise you. But they are the exception, and are willing to pay more just to be on a Mac, and let's just say they center in on the silicon valley and some sparkly names down there.
I don't know anyone doing that with Linux as of yet. Maybe there are a few.
Now you did mix a couple of things together. You mention open programs too. Everybody can use those. Open Office and it's friends, Inkscape are two that I use regularly in addition to the ones you mentioned. The benefits of open software do not require Linux at all.
Finally, you mention cash outlay. Who says I buy that stuff? Being a platform neutral kind of guy, I run what they give me, and what the clients and prospects request. As a person, I don't need to pay for much in the way of software, so I just don't. Linux and open works well for me in that respect. I can make it sing on Linux, Mac, Windows. No worries. It's just that almost nobody is asking to do product design, mechanical engineering and manufacturing on Linux, and a very few are asking on Mac, and of those, they've got windows in a VM to do it with. No joke.
And if we expand that discussion to working professionals, most of them do not care. They see the computer as a tool to help with whatever their practice is. That tool costs a little money, they pay it, do their work, make a whole lot more than they paid, and life is good. Computing isn't an end goal to them, life is. The case for going Linux isn't compelling in that way, so it's rarely made.
The point being it's not really OK to bash on people for their OS choice, and it's not OK, because you by your own words here, if nothing else, don't even really know what they do and how and why they do it, nor was there any discussion about actually being able to make that choice, which the vast majority of people do not get to do.
Unless you do, maybe it's not a bad idea to rethink those kinds of comments.
My company has a small example of this just now. We are using millimeter radars that can only be set up and configured via a Windows program provided by their manufacturer. It has the typical Windows world pain of requiring an key to install and using some secret protocol to talk to the radar units. What a pointless pain. Luckily it runs in a VM very well and we can clone those images as much as we like. Also luckily they disclosed enough of the secret protocol that we can actually create software to get the target and track data out into Linux based embedded systems.
There is the ideology, and I'm a fan, supporter and advocate. Open code, open data. Love it.
But I'm also a very pragmatic person. I generally do not allow ideology and orthodoxy to be means to ends. Those are reasoning tools only. They deserve to be respected, but a critical evaluation could result in a different path, and that's OK.
"And it's entirely possible to work efficiently on all of them too."
Err, no. Depends what you mean by "work" of course, but every time I have to work on a Windows machine I wonder how anyone ever gets anything done on it.
It just lacks so many features I take for granted. Not even complicated things. To some extent this can be mitigated by installing cygwin and such like, but it's all a pain.