Sailors on the Sea

Monday, February 23, 2009

Infected

Well, it looks like once again I have a computer infected with a virus, trojan, worm, or whatever the correct term is now. The last time this happened it attacked the computer's mother board and destroyed years of work. Most of my files were lost forever. What a pleasant thought.

The good news is FairyHedgeHog directed me to a site which should be able to help.

The bad news is I'm having trouble figuring out how to use the site.

I did get something to run, which produced a log file, which I posted as a message on the site. Now I just have to wait and see if I did everything right.

Hopefully, everything can get resolved satisfactorily. If not, this machine is probably going to crash. Hard. And then I may be off-line for a very long time. Maybe forever. I don't know. I do know I don't have the money to replace the machine if it dies like the last one.

Whatever.

12 comments:

Lisa said...

Oh no, sorry to hear this.
Do you know how this virus was downloaded on your system?

Bevie said...

Not sure. I remember visiting some sites which provided tabulature for the bass guitar. Then I got virus messages. I thought my virus software intercepted it. But today I find that is not true. Hopefully, I can get it cleaned up quickly.

Lisa said...

Are you saying that you got a message (a pop up) stating that a virus was detected and that you needed to select some option - in the pop up - to take care of it)
If so, then that was your virus.
Sorry this happened to you! If you have sensetive information on your system - delete it. better you, take the system off the internet until you have it fixed.
Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Hi...
Was surfing and came by your blog through a Google search. Sorry to hear you have worm/trojan problems.
This is not a sell, just trying to be helpful. I build simple websites freehand and build blogs on Wordpress platforms on the side.

I am going to assume that you are running Windows XP on your computer, so here goes...

Once the techs clean your computer, go get AVG (the free version) as your anti-virus protection.
You can get it at http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afe ...choose the free one on the left.

Go get Sunbelt Personal Firewall as the firewall for your computer. You will have to pay $19.95 for a year, but it is worth the protection. You can get it here: http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/home-home-office/sunbelt-personal-firewall/
Don't bother with the trial version, get the $19.95 version on the right.

Go get Spybot Search and Destroy for spyware and tracking cookies. It's free and you can get it here: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html
Take the first download box. You can get the current updates once you've installed it.

If you are using Internet Explorer for your browser, change to Mozilla Firefox. You get it here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

I have four computers at home, all running XP and I have never had any problems. These programs are some of the best around.
The Sunbelt Firewall automatically turns off your Windows firewall, it does not uninstall it, it is taking its place, so don't worry. Sunbelt is far superior to the Windows one.

You will have to run Spybot manually, at least once a week for sure.

If you doubt any of these, ask any tech guys you know.

I already entered my site in your comments field, but if you have questions, just e-mail me at theeloquentbohemian(at) gmail(dot)com.

Good luck. Hope things work out okay for you.

fairyhedgehog said...

Good luck, Bevie. I hope you get it sorted out quickly.

fairyhedgehog said...

The only one of these I hadn't heard of was the Sunbelt firewall. We have a firewall in our router and use that instead.

I really ought to run Spybot more often. It's no use having it installed and not using it.

jaz said...

Bevie, this happened to me on my old laptop--exactly what Lisa described. I hope yours is fixable!! And if not, I hope you can still get on a computer at the public library to continue writing and blogging!!

I'm sorry you have to deal with this. Please keep us posted.

Jennifer

Bevie said...

If, by "sensitive information" you mean credit card numbers and such, no. I don't do on-line banking from home. I write. I blog. I email. I play computer games.

Lisa said...

That's good you don't have sensetive data on your system.
Jennifer - sorry to hear this happened to you.
I've seen the pop ups on my laptop and they really scared me so I killed my browser, rebooted my laptop and disconnected it from the internet. (paranoid). I didn't click OK, I was just paranoid that it some how downloaded something anyway . . . so I trolled my operatoring system looking for suspicious files!

Bevie said...

Lisa: Yes. I don't think there is any banking or SSN-type information at all on the computer.

I knew better than to click and download anything. I ran a scan using my security software (took two hours) and it didn't find anything.

Maybe there is no virus/trojan. But the system sure runs slowly.

fairyhedgehog said...

I hope you get it sorted. If you don't have a virus/trojan/whatever then you might need a good defragmenter. PerfectDisk is very good and they do a 30 day free trial.

Let's hope it gets sorted soon.

Bevie said...

Thanks, Fairy.

I'm not going to push it too hard until after Mother's surgery on Thursday. One less thing to take up thought.

Contributors

A Tentative Schedule

Monday - Progress Report
Where am I with regard to the Current Book

Tuesday - Thoughts About Writing
I was going to be profound, but let's be real

Wednesday - What Am I Learning
What can I take from what I am doing

Thursday - Work Sent Out For Review
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Friday - Other Works of Fantasy
Some of my other fantasy writing

Saturday - The Impact of Music
How music has influenced what I write

Sunday - Venting
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