Virus Warnings

[Mahdi]

I still use hotmail :-[

[Andrew]

I still use hotmail :-[

Get GMail. Seriously it is the best thing since sliced bread.

I get very little spam in gmail since it catches almost all of it. Very easy to use interface, very powerful since it uses jabber protocol so lots of programs can connect to it to check email, or to chat with other gmail users.

Then once you have gmail you can continue to use hotmail as your junk mail account when you sign up for stuff to make sure crap doesn't get sent to gmail. I currently still have 2 hotmail accounts that I check maybe once a week or two. my gmail is used for everything important, work, school, important friends that are not sending me spam etc.

[veK]

yes use gmail if you want google to read all your emails  ;)

[Rene]

yes use gmail if you want google to read all your emails  ;)

Now that's a good point, I don't trust google either, but it implies you trust Microsoft with your mail?

[Andrew]

Microsoft sends me spam every month promoting their products. I flag it as spam but they keep sending it. I've only ever received one email from google and that is when I signed up.

I'd rather have google reading my emails than using crappy hotmail.

[Dragoon Knight]

I still use Hotmail, because I honestly prefer it to GMail.  I still use both, but I use GMail as my spam account.  Regularly empty my spam folder (i.e. once a week) and it normally has about 500+ emails.  Never have any problems with Hotmail spam filters - can't remember the last time Junk Mail arrived in my inbox.  For me, it's the convenience of Hotmail plugging in with Windows Live Messenger and my Logitech G15 keyboard.  Just a whole lot easier to use.

What surprises me is that people still click links like that in any email service / client. ???

[Rene]

I'd rather have google reading my emails than using crappy hotmail.

Agreed, I have a GMail account too. But I mainly use it for large attachments and registration mails. I have my own mail server which I use for important stuff, but I know that's not an option for most people.

For me, it's the convenience of Hotmail plugging in with Windows Live Messenger and my Logitech G15 keyboard.  Just a whole lot easier to use.

The G15 argument isn't valid: you can use it to monitor GMail too ;). I can understand the Live Messenger one though.

[veK]

Now that's a good point, I don't trust google either, but it implies you trust Microsoft with your mail?

no, I use a very good local provider for a free webmail adress but I also have some own domains with webspace and email adresses

[gryphon]

Amazing that after all those years people still use free email accounts...

I wonder where all the spam comes from then.

Do you receive a lot of unwanted emails with your local provider Vek?

[veK]

suprisingly no... although I own this email for about 9 years now. I had other accounts which received much more spam. I use this free email account for a lot of activities (like forums and webshops...) although I use it as an forwarding adress to my own adresses (which are IMAP) and haven't used the webinterface in years.

[Gobalopper]

You can get your Hotmail messages in your Gmail inbox now. They opened up POP access to Hotmail a number of months ago.

[Andrew]

Just got a phone call. Someone else got infected by similar thing. This time through live messenger. Once again win vista. Was sent from infected live messenger user.

Free Bootable AntiVirus Rescue CDs Download List

I'm gonna use avira antivirus live cd along with malwarebytes. I should start a business to get rid of this crap from computers. The local small computer shop guys charge $50 an hour to deal with it.

[Andrew]

Reading slashdot discussion New York Times Site Pop-Up Says Your Computer Is Infected. Someone mentioned encrypted malware. I think I had this on one laptop, and I nuked it from orbit to make sure it was gone. Apparently encrypts your files, and you have to pay to unencrypt (but they get your credit card and will rack up charges). Luckily nothing important was missing on the laptop, although I'm not sure how 50% of hard drive got full of was encrypted files (I think 120 files).

When I ran one of the bootable linux iso virus scanners it found a lot of encrypted files and could not scan them. They were probably the reason why the hard drive was 95% full yet I could only account for 40% full. It had win vista business, and formatting from dvd instead of hard drive partition gave me winxp. So it seems win vista business was installed, yet recovery dvd only had winxp. laptop was a gift, not bought.

Beware FileFixer Pro

Looks like I'll have to rescan some non formatted computers to see if encrypted files are hidden if they got that malware.

So, New York Times and CNN and probably others that use same ad networks have been spreading malware to probably thousands of people (well probably hundreds of thousands seen the malware popup). I hope some class action lawsuit occurs. The advertising model is broken. It's all about showing as many ads as possible to as many people as possible, even though content producers have no control over ad content. All done through ad farm networks.

What to Do If You Saw an

[Andrew]

Not a virus/malware, but facebook scam.

Links explain problem. One person I know has this currently, and people actually believed it...

http://dasnowman.wordpress.com/

http://antionline.com/showthread.php?p=951744

[Tehpevis]

I reckon we need to create a thread for major virus alerts.

So, if any of your friends send you the following link on MSN:

http://www.block-checker.com

Do not click on it.

Please reply only if you have a new virus warning, then people can easily see when there are new warnings.

Paranoia at its most entertaining!

[MrFlibble]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but anyway. After updating virus definitions earlier today, my avast! Antivirus detected spyware activity in memory (Win32:Spyware-gen [spy]), which was traced to a file called termsrv.dll. avast! forced me to perform a boot-scan, and all instances of this file (located in windowssystem32, windowssystem32dllcache and among system back-up files) were either deleted or sent to the "Virus Chest". Another scan performed after that also found this file in WINDOWSI386TERMSRV.DL_. However, when I checked the files in the Chest, it turned out that their last change dates back to 25.09.2002 (whereas the PC itself is in use since 2004).

So basically, is it a false positive, or does the spyware thingy try to mask itself with a fake date?

EDIT: I submitted the files to the avast! developers for analysis.

[Andrew]

Could be false positive, that happens a lot.

Also could be that the file was modified at some point legitimately and the antivirus thinks that the changed file is bad.

Google your supposed spyware and you'll probably find other results, especially if false positive.

One decent google result is

what is Patched Termsrv.dll?

From more google searches it could be a virus, as lots of places say it is (and possibly false positive for another file).

Win32:spyware-gen