Where do you guys keep getting infected with this crap from?

TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
edited September 2004 in Science & Tech
I live on the web all day. I hit porn sites warez sites and lots of semi-shady resources and I have not got infected with any serious home page/search hijacking software since I installed spybot and did the immunize and added their host file entries 6 or 8 months ago. I used to have even more trouble on my kids box then mine but even that hasn't barfed in months?

Where are you guys going to get hijacked? Do you even know? Some people seem to get fixed and are right back here again in a few days hijacked again.

I'm sure there is better protection available but the spybot immunize AND the host file entries seem to of really kicked serious booty on the problems I was having. Are there further methods I can take to protect against hijacking?

Seems a lot of the folks here need help protecting against further hi-jacking so they don't have to keep coming back over and over?

Tex

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    I think a great deal of it comes from "cute" stuff - "smileys for your email" and "look at this britney spears ****ing micheal jackson video!" and "YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED WITH SPYWARE AND THE FBI AND CIA AND PRESIDENT KNOW YOUR CREDIT CARD INFO AND YOU WENT TO A PORN SITE CLICK HERE TO REMOVE THIS INFORMATION" kind of stuff. Stuff that preys on noobs.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited September 2004
    If you have kids age 7-14 you are particularly at risk. I set up my old Athlon 850 in my parents spare bedroom because my nieces and nephews were always screwing up my dads computer when they came over.

    I just brought it home for a rehab and out of curiousity ran Spybot and Ad-Aware. Between them they found over 500 spyware/malware files. (I had NAV on the machine, thank goodness...)

    Hey! Want to play this neato FREE game? Want to watch free cartoons on your computer? Would you like to send nifty email with custom fonts and stationery? Just click here!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    "look at this britney spears ****ing micheal jackson video!"

    If that's your idea of cute stuff, I don't wanna know what you think is freaky! :p
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    People like that used to drive me crazy wanting me to clean their machines every other week. Then I started my new policy. You got infected. The only fix is to format your hard drive. ALL YOUR DATA IS GONE !!! You should have not turned off the spybot I put on there last time. It is not practical to spend hours and hours trying to get that crap off. And if you charge em for the REAL time it took they have heart attacks. So now my new policy makes repair quick and easy and they pay the FINE for being a noob. Keeps me out of work much more now :)
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited September 2004
    It definitely gets in there with the cutesy games, instant messenger clients, and so forth. That's where the majority of our infections come from. Most people will click "yes" to everything default when installing these devilish little apps and let the stuff right in. We keep trying to tell them to scrutinize what they are saying "yes" to but they certainly aren't technical enough to know the difference on many things. We are about to install a full-armor type product on the work machines to keep from having to spend so much of our precious time cleaning out spyware. It's practically reached epidemic proportions around the office, not to mention all the ones who want to bring in their personal computers because they have bjorked them to the point where they are practically crippled. The spyware really does take advantage of the noobs. I'm with you on this one Tex as I go all over the net too and don't get the stuff on my 'puters. People just simply don't know how to be vigilant and I don't see it getting any better in the near future. It's a good specialty (spyware removal) to cash in on at the present moment.

    KingFish
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    Firefox. 'nuff said. Install, remove admin rights and viola! :grr:
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    Forcing users to use firefox really does help a LOT.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited September 2004
    I find it helpful to download host files off of trusted sites. My hosts file now is almost 2mb, which is damn big since it is like 12kb to start off with. Blocks all sorts of crap.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    Here you go, here's a perfect example:

    http://www.windupdates.com/license.html

    That's one that I've been seeing a lot of lately. Read the license agreement carefully. You will see that it basically takes over, puts porno favorites in there, takes over your browser, hijacks your start and search pages, and all kinds of other crap.

    People agree to it when they install "Cute", "Free", and "Fun". :rolleyes::mad:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited September 2004
    Clutch wrote:
    I find it helpful to download host files off of trusted sites. My hosts file now is almost 2mb, which is damn big since it is like 12kb to start off with. Blocks all sorts of crap.

    Spyboat loads like hundreds if not thousands of entries into the host file if you let it and I think thats one reason I have almost zero problems now,
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited September 2004
    Cost of your time and frustration trying to fix an infected PC? What do you earn per hour at your job x how many hours you spent trying to fix it?

    Cost of computer repair technician to come to your home and clean out infected PC? $75-$150 per hour.

    Cost of one hardware firewall router plus a good Antivirus program? Less than the your time or the computer technician's time.


    Never been hijacked. Never been infected. I experimented and set up a PC with a clean install of WinXP when it wasn't behind the router hardware firewall and when I hit MS Update site on the very first connection after the clean install...boom...trojans.

    Firewall + AV software = less headaches.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited September 2004
    MediaDude: You also don't

    1) surf questionable sites.

    and

    2) don't have kids

    so your already immune to thousands of potential booby traps laid across the internet.

    I was getting hijacked untill I ...

    1) Did the Spybot immuniz thing that knocks out 1900 known problems and

    2) Added their huge host file that reroutes tons of the booger sites to 127.0.0.1 so you can't reach the SOB's even if someone stupid takes control of the computer and tries. (like a young niece or nephew that brother or sis tries to entertain at your house by letting them use the internet)

    So by simply not having kids your already way way ahead of the game as they seem to be the one constant link to this crap most mention. They prey on the young and stupid or old and stupid. Most of my spyware cleanup is eiither for box's primarily used by kids or old people not computer savy middle of the road types. And by the time I get the box here at my house it takes 15 minutes to boot and runs so slow it takes 10 minutes to just clean enough stuff so the box runs at half speed. And I'm serious when I say this. People alwasy expect some horrible hardware problem... damaged CPU or some such nonsense and when you look at whats running they 5 pages of process's...

    Tex
  • t1rhinot1rhino Toronto
    edited September 2004
    MediaMan wrote:
    Cost of your time and frustration trying to fix an infected PC? What do you earn per hour at your job x how many hours you spent trying to fix it?

    Cost of computer repair technician to come to your home and clean out infected PC? $75-$150 per hour.

    Cost of one hardware firewall router plus a good Antivirus program? Less than the your time or the computer technician's time.


    Never been hijacked. Never been infected. I experimented and set up a PC with a clean install of WinXP when it wasn't behind the router hardware firewall and when I hit MS Update site on the very first connection after the clean install...boom...trojans.

    Firewall + AV software = less headaches.

    And I think Firewall + AV software + Firefox = no headaches :D

    Many people have a hard enough time sending emails, let alone defending their computer from spyware/malware.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited September 2004
    But firewalls and AV does nothing to most these search and home hijackers.

    Two differant problems entirely. All the boxs I work oin have AV and firewalls.

    tex
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    Yep, a firewall and av software will do nothing to protect you from malware.

    You have to remember one thing - THESE THINGS ARE INSTALLED BY THE USER. As in "yes, I want to install this"

    The problem is obviously that most of the "crap" is buried chest-deep inside the ridiculous license agreements, but the other problem is that people just want "cute" "free" and "fun" on their computers.

    I really think there needs to be an internet license, much like a driver's license. Something that says "I have a basic education on how to safely operate this piece of equipment. Because if I didn't, my negligence or ignorance could cause actual damage to others"...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited September 2004
    Not all the crap has you say yes to install it. Now they may disguise it and say "click here to exit the page" and they yank your go-nads and install crap but trust me here I never agreed to download or install anything when I had my pages hi-jacked. I was on porn sites and you get trapped with a button saying click next and there is no way out but using the task manager to kill their butt and they never say they are installing anything. Just click next to continue or some nonsense. Half the crap now-a-days is way beyond legit they simply use any way possible to hijack ya.
  • SpywareShooterSpywareShooter 127.0.0.1
    edited September 2004
    The main reason I don't get spyware anymore is Spyware Shooter. I used to get VX2 (and so many people are complaning about that now) like 3 times a week, but I could remove it in 10 minutes tops, even without HijackThis, Ad-Aware or Spybot. That's not going on porn sites or other questionable sites either. Lots of innocent sites such as lyrics sites contain popups that try to autodownload to your computer. I've had a few try to install Addictive Techonogies and C2Media before, but SS blocked it.

    I used to have a hosts file of around 200KB, but it didn't do anything. They say hosts files block popups, downloads, etc. I don't know if it's my machine or what, but it didn't do crap for me. I still got the popups, banner ads, etc from "blocked" sites.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    As far as AV not doing crap-- traditional AV is often weak on Trojans. MacAfee, Symantec until VERY recently, Avast, AVG to a degree, do not know trojans. Spybot, and now AdAware SE, are able to detect some trojans. Command Antivirus (Authentium's product) and F-Prot and to a degree Kaspersky Lab's AV (version 5) do watch for trojan like behavior (ALL use the same basic heuristics, developed by F-Prot, and F-Prot is partnered with Authentium and gets some defs from them and supplies some defs TO them). So, pure traditional AV is not a pure\perfect or total solution (agreed there, Prime). NOR, does it block pure plain and simple adware data mining cookies-- but F-Prot DOES know VX2 and a bunch of other trojan and spyware things. Command AV (Authentium) does also, as does Kaspersky Lab's AV.

    I use hardware firewall, software firewall, and F-Prot and still kill a few doubleclick and Avant and Trend adwares with Spybot S&D and AdAware SE 1.04 and HJT. I use HJT as a a good weekly checker, F-Prot runs full scan and autoupdate daily and also blocks some stuff thrown at me live real well.

    MediaMan uses common sense and uses a HARDWARE firewall and uses AV. The first is the most important ("Free on the web" AIN'T free, normally). The other two are needed. But, for the average user, so are Adaware SE and SpyBot and HJT for times when an unwary click results in chaos seemingly instantly.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2004
    profdlp wrote:
    If you have kids age 7-14 you are particularly at risk. I set up my old Athlon 850 in my parents spare bedroom because my nieces and nephews were always screwing up my dads computer when they came over.

    I just brought it home for a rehab and out of curiousity ran Spybot and Ad-Aware. Between them they found over 500 spyware/malware files. (I had NAV on the machine, thank goodness...)

    Hey! Want to play this neato FREE game? Want to watch free cartoons on your computer? Would you like to send nifty email with custom fonts and stationery? Just click here!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:


    CASE IN POINT: A Lady sent me a box, I cleaned it. TWO DAYS later it was off the web. Kid had stuck a pencil or pen AND A pin into the 4 foot NIC cable in 15 places, and also managed to get 625 (NEW from when returned clean) spywares and another 45 NEWISH trojans that ONLY F-Prot caught, some in his RESTORE POINTS (I run F-Prot aggressively, it scans even restore archives and other CAB and ZIP files and scans ALL files the way I set it) BEFORE he did that to the cable (cable also defective by testing). I had to WIPE the Restore Points (the hard way) in addition to killing the junk the kid got on the box in TWO days to make the box not reinfect itself. Box had exactly TWO sets of restore points on it-- the clean ones I stuck on it on July 22, and the infected ones that his Windows made on July 24. IT was NOT on the web after that-- hijacked, spied, troajaned, every which way. I looked at file datings to be sure. Let's SEE, free stuff links (LOTS), P2P of three flavors, an obsolete MacAfee AV (WAY obsolete), and an unused set of malware removers, some of which the kid had REMOVED.
  • J2GerooJ2Geroo
    edited September 2004
    I truly have NO idea where it came from...I am going to assume it was my teenage brother surfing sites he shouldnt have been on...

    I use email, go to 3 message boards (a parenting one and a disneyland one and this one)i clikc on NO BANNERS ever

    I go to yahoo homepage and read the news

    and work on stuff for my Autism walk..via the webmail system that the non profit I am volunteering with uses..this is ALL that I do on the internet

    I dont open emails that I dont now the name on it..

    I DO however have Trillian and Yahoo messanger on my machine..

    and I got the dreaded HomeSeacrh Assistant..

    so unless my brother went to some bad sites or something I haventa CLUE on where it came from...SIGH

    Im off to read the ways to protect yourself threads now.

    UGH
Sign In or Register to comment.