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Thread ID: 49197 2004-09-12 22:02:00 Virii/trojans sarel (2490) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
271665 2004-09-12 22:02:00 Recently I reinstalled WinXP on the wife's lappie. Tried to d/l Zonealarm, etc in stead of using one of the PCW disks. Once everything installed, did a check with AVG/Ad-Aware/Spybot. To my horror found that I had about 5 virii and about 7 trojans - and I've been one the net only to d/l ZA - say 20 mins. The disks I used to reinstall are clean as.

Is this possible - not having any protection and getting so many virii in such a short time?

In any case - all other guys trying the same thing - beware

Sarel
sarel (2490)
271666 2004-09-12 22:15:00 Did you update XP with all security patches before going on line? (from a CD)

Di you activate XP's built in firewall before going on line?

If not, then that's the expected outcome. You cannot connect XP unpatched and without a firewall even for a few seconds without becoming infected. Sad but true.
godfather (25)
271667 2004-09-12 23:22:00 But godfather, it took only 20 mins of "unprotected" on-line time - surely it can't happen that fast?

And no - no update yet and no activation of firewall - I mean I was busy d/ling ZA for that purpose.

What amazed me was the speed of infection - shees, quicker and more than I've seen in my life. Most of them were "older" style virii and trojans - like Istbar, etc. Luckily they were removed by AVG and the rest I got rid off by inactivating _Restore.

Sarel
sarel (2490)
271668 2004-09-12 23:25:00 I would say you recieved the first infection within seconds of connecting to the net,that crap is bouncing around non-stop.

Inabling the inbuilt Windows firewall would have helped.
metla (154)
271669 2004-09-12 23:32:00 if you had istbar i would suspect you have either surfed to a nasty site before you had windows updates done or it was installed with a program you installed on the pc. istbar dosn't spread like a trojen, you have to go to a site with it or install it yourself. tweak'e (174)
271670 2004-09-12 23:33:00 I remember... back in the days... I was getting a new connection attempt every 2-3 seconds at its peak :-( Infection attempts have slowed majorly, but its still common out there!

Sucked being on Dial-Up at the time too.

I would suggest (If at all possible) you slipstream your WinXP Setup Disc with Service Pack 2. The Service Pack 2 is free from Microsoft - They'll even post it out to you on a CD.


Chill.
Chilling_Silence (9)
271671 2004-09-12 23:52:00 Here (www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/infected_in20_minutes/) is an article about the 20 minutes that is all it takes. :D mark c (247)
271672 2004-09-12 23:53:00 www.theregister.co.uk

Sorry, bunged that link up.
mark c (247)
271673 2004-09-13 02:05:00 > But godfather, it took only 20 mins of "unprotected"
> on-line time - surely it can't happen that fast?

Yep & what I have read the time it takes to get infection has started to go down, I think it is even less then 20 mins of "unprotected" on-line time.
stu120404 (268)
271674 2004-09-13 20:28:00 Thanks Chill - got the SP2 already - as well as the latest one sarel (2490)
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