Someone's gonna pay!

[therock1811]

SOMEONE HACKED or sent me a virus! I am not happy about it as it is gonna require a few days downtime for my primary computer! I have to redo EVERYTHING...I'm still posting but on the secondary system... needless to say I will be offline much of tomorrow and doubt it will be before Friday or the weekend before I do get things back up...so don't worry if you don't see me online much...I don't need to tell you that someone is gonna pay for the damage done today...

[vbhoutex]

That sucks Jeremy!!! I will never understand why people have a need to hack someone elses computer!!!

[therock1811]

Yeah and what is really frustrating is I don't know how it went down...Didn't even know it had happened until my sister pointed out the message that said that my win32 file was corrupt...I don't think my hard drive crashed but I don't think I can rule that out either...

[CajunMama]

Jeremy....now how do you know someone sent you a virus? Do you scan your email when there is an attachment? Do you keep your virus definitions up to date? Did one of your siblings download something? Most viruses have to be downloaded and opened for them to get onto your computer if i'm not mistaken. I think you are wrong thinking someone sent you a virus...many people don't realize that their computers are infected.

[therock1811]

I might be but I don't really know how it happened...I only know it corrupted or took out one part of the windows directory...and it has taken all morning so far to wipe and reinstall Windows...and I'm still not finished yet...

[pawlee]

do you have a firewall and all that stuff? can it be saved via system restore back to a previous date? p

[Lindaloo]

I have been getting some suspicious emails in my junk box. It says "Mail system User unknown" It is like a returned email. I opened the email and there is an attachment. I deleted it right away. I had three in there at one time.

[Rainband]

Jemery, Download Zonealarm and AVG. AVG is at grisoft.com AVG FREE EDITION. Zone alarm is free too. Good Luck Bud

[wx247]

I have had my fair share of viruses as well back in the fall. They seem to come in waves...

good luck Jeremy!

[pawlee]

i've been getting those too. they are totally new, not like anything i've seen. i don't mess with em'. likewise, don't ever open a message without a subject or a named sender, they are beacons that send confirmation to a remote host that you opened spam thus you "technically" are ok with spam and become bombarded with it. i've viewed the hidden source code already, very clever writing these scoundrels... p

[therock1811]

Rainband I intend to do exactly that...

Paul they basically messed up my virus protection/firewall in the hours leading up to the attack...then sometime between 8 and midnight, boom! There it went...I have had to reinstall all of my windows components...I'm going to have to entirely redo my messengers and other programs as well as my e-mail...as stated this is the secondary computer which was not hit...reinstall will be done shortly as far as my main windows...thankfully all important files are backed up to disks except my windows files...which cannot be as far as I know...

[Stephanie]

I'm so sorry to hear that Jeremy!

[therock1811]

Well the good news is this took less time to fix than thought...this totally bit...to say the least I was and still am very angry about the whole deal...it's going to take another hour or two just to reset my virus and other things, but I don't need my MS Office programs on that computer...as I use this one for that...still I don't know why and can't believe that someone felt that they had something to prove...either way, I'm back to somewhat normal as far as being online......

[azskyman]

I've discovered that without sophisticated software and lots of time it is hard to track down the real source of viruses. Sometimes it is as simple as just being online and it will sweep through, grab your email addresses and pass it on without so much as a snicker along the way. For those reasons, I've discovered that the blame game usually comes up emptyhanded....and so nobody "has to pay" for what has happened. Glad it was not too serious.

I've added firewall protection to the antivirus software and spamblockers but realize that the only secure way to avoid risk is to lock yourself out and stay offline indefinitely.

That would be like staying in your house the rest of your life so you can avoid real viruses transmitted among people.

The risk is there, so I make sure I have backup copies of email addresses, my most critical files, and passwords.

[TexasStooge]

Oh boy, what's the need for people to hack computers nowadays?

[therock1811]

I don't know why they do that Stooge...

Azskyman, I think ISP's can track the origination points of things like this (or at least that's what someone else told me). If my ISP can do it, it'll be good for catching the perp...

[ColdFront77]

I have been getting my "computer scanned" for the last several days, ever several minutes there have been as few as one to as many as a half dozen or so IP addresses on my firewall. Before this week it took some time for even one.

[azsnowman]

Jeremy, I feel for ya Brother, the SAME thing just happened to us 3 days ago, I've got Norton, Stopsign and I "STILL" got a virus.....I've got most of the bugs worked out except for Outlook Express, everytime I click to go online using the OE....I have to reboot the whole system, now, if I click NOAA, Storm2K, I'm fine, it only does it with OE......any ideas, anyone?

Dennis

[pawlee]

for whatever it's worth... since i don't use any messenger services, i uninstalled them all (AIM, MSN, Yahoo). likewise, i uninstalled outlook express since i don't use it. several of these new worm variants use the above to get inside our pc's without our knowlegde (especially via O.E.). since doing away with these things, the only way into my pc is via internet explorer which is one i am able to monitor and control with the utilities i have (spybot, norton's, sbc firewall). as a result, i have had far fewer difficulties with viruses/malware then from before canning these services. that's all... p

(oh yeah, no kazaa, limewire or downloading software from questionable sources is a big preventive as well.)

[therock1811]

We deleted Kazaa yesterday as soon as everything came back up...

Dennis (and David), the things that are happening to you were not the same as what hit me...however yesterday I did have problems opening my e-mail box too...