Computer Viruses / Trojans / Malware
 

I'm curious to hear to stories of anyone here whose computer (or other electronic device) has been infected with a computer virus, trojan horse, or other nasty malware.

If you have written one, that might also be an interesting story.

Are you including cases where the malware is an official part of the device's software?

[QUOTE=Nick;465262]Are you including cases where the malware is an official part of the device's software?[/QUOTE]

:smile: No.

[QUOTE=rogue;465264]:smile: No.[/QUOTE]

Why not? I would argue it is the more widespread problem worldwide, by several orders of magnitude.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;465310]Why not? I would argue it is the more widespread problem worldwide, by several orders of magnitude.[/QUOTE]

I interpret your question as being a means to blast vendors due to how they bundle software. I am annoyed by that as well, but that wasn't the goal of this thread.

Two weeks ago the company I work for was hit by the WannaCry ransomware virus. My understanding is that this virus comes in two parts, a pre-loader and the virus itself. The pre-loader will try to download the virus from some IP and install the virus.

From what I heard someone brought it in house from one of our customers. They only had the pre-loader installed, but due to our corporate firewall, that pre-loader could not access the IP with the virus. Unfortunately that pre-loader infected enough computers at one of our buildings that they had to shut that building down in order to contain it. It found its way into the building I'm in, but didn't affect too many people. Apparently it was loaded when people needed to access certain network shares. Our IT was running around for a couple of days tracking down the infected computers to remove the pre-loader and to patch them.

With such a nasty virus you would think that the company would warn its employees about the virus and how it is spreading. You would think that it would tell employees to not take their infected computers home where they most likely don't have a firewall to protect them. You would think that it would tell employees who are travelling to get a software patch before connecting to any customer networks. You would think that it would tell all users and groups who have VMs that the VMs are potential targets and need to be updated.

None of that happened. The company silently pushed out a patch (the first in many months) to update all computers after they feel that they have it contained. This patch does not get pushed to VMs.

I'll be curious to know how many people took an infected computer home only to be hit by the virus when they accessed the internet without a firewall.

[QUOTE=rogue;465261]I'm curious to hear to stories of anyone here whose computer (or other electronic device) has been infected with a computer virus, trojan horse, or other nasty malware.

If you have written one, that might also be an interesting story.[/QUOTE]
There are [URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?p=465526"]many things to say[/URL]....

I remember a malware program called Adware.YouTubeAdBlocker, which kept injecting ad code into most of the pages I visited, including FactorDB pages. It infected one of my PCs (Windows 7) in 2014, after downloading what I thought was a legit download manager (EZDownloader) from a random file-sharing website, but it turned out to be bundled with the adware I just mentioned, which I thought was a program to block ads on YouTube. I had to use 2 anti-malware programs (McAfee Online Scanner and MalwareBytes) to get rid of it. I haven't been infected with anything since, because I learned not to download executables from unknown sites. I do have a VM set up for virus testing purposes, and I've found quite a few on sites like Malwr (one of many sites to download malware samples from) that can be pretty dangerous.

[QUOTE=Stargate38;465992]I haven't been infected with anything since, because I learned not to download executables from unknown sites. I do have a VM set up for virus testing purposes, and I've found quite a few on sites like Malwr (one of many sites to download malware samples from) that can be pretty dangerous.[/QUOTE]I haven't been infected with malware because (a) I run Linux and BSD and (b) I practice safe-sex. (Sex is software exchange, if you are unfamiliar with the abbreviation.)

[QUOTE=xilman;466001]I haven't been infected with malware because (a) I run Linux and BSD and (b) I practice safe-sex. (Sex is software exchange, if you are unfamiliar with the abbreviation.)[/QUOTE]

I similarly only use Linux and MacOS anymore, but if I had one single 'underused tooltip' to share re. avoiding common infection routes on any internet-connected devices, it would be the 'cursor hover' one for e-mail links: before clicking *any* e-mail link (or more generally, link in a webpage you are viewing, especially one of iffy provenance such as video-sharing, p0rn and pirate-foo), hover your cursor over said link and wait for the hovertext to appear and reveal the true underlying URL. If your e-device/e-mail-program/webbrowser does not permit said technique, good luck, 'cause you're gonna need it.

About 18 months ago, I got a nasty bit of MaleWare on my iMac, running OSX running 10.9.5.
I was learning how to cook and one of the best ways to get good recipes is to visit the blogs of chefs you like. When I did that, BOOM! My AV software, BitDefender immediately crashed. I realized at once that was a real bad sign so rebooted and ran an in-depth scan. It found the culprit ( sorry, I can't remember its name ) and killed it. It looked like it was in an advert that these sites carry. That's how they make money. The BitDefender staff were most helpful ( I have no relationship with that company except as a customer ) and were quite interested in looking at that site; that's how I knew where the problem was.
This is the only male ware I have gotten in the last 20 years, and I use lots of windows machines. However, I ALWAYS keep them up to date via updates also.

I have an ad blocker on my Mac. When I run into sites that say "please turn of the ad blocker or we won't show you our content", I go somewhere else.

I did once (late 80's) introduce a virus to my MacPlus (or was it an SE 30?) via a floppy drive. I got it from a roommate who had the virus and I was curious about it. Fortunately it was very easy to contain and my curiosity only cost me a floppy disk.