Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 69007	2006-05-19 03:28:00	Tips for spyware, malware and viruses?	Deimos (5715)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
455942	2006-05-19 03:28:00	I have been an XP user for going on 5 years, and I have 7 years of IT and system building experience. in all my years involved in PC's I have had a grand total of 2 viruses, nothing to write home about. in that same time I have had minimal spam, and I currently do not recieve ANY spam on any of my email addresses. in the last couple of years I have had an intense battle with spyware/malware and recently had a major break through, and have been spyware clean for 8 months (totally clean, which means never infected, not - infected and then cleaned a dozen or so times). I do not run any applications in the background, that is, I do not run additional pop up blockers (apart from the built in SP2 blocker), I do not run Spybot's Tea-timer (which is very good, don't get me wrong), and I do not have a virus program running in the back ground (I have one installed, but it is "on demand" only, it does not actively protect my PC), and I do not have a software firewall installed, windows firewall is disabled, also I use IE6 which has a reputation for being spyware/malware prone. So the question is, do you all want my advice? and if I give it, will you follow it religously?	Deimos (5715)
455943	2006-05-19 03:37:00	I don't have much trouble either, but any experience from others is valuable. I'm all ears!	Vallis (8886)
455944	2006-05-19 03:42:00	I have been an XP user for going on 5 years, and I have 7 years of IT and system building experience. in all my years involved in PC's I have had a grand total of 2 viruses, nothing to write home about. in that same time I have had minimal spam, and I currently do not recieve ANY spam on any of my email addresses.Amazing. in the last couple of years I have had an intense battle with spyware/malware and recently had a major break through, and have been spyware clean for 8 months (totally clean, which means never infected, not - infected and then cleaned a dozen or so times).Welcome to our world I do not run any applications in the background, that is, I do not run additional pop up blockers (apart from the built in SP2 blocker), I do not run Spybot's Tea-timer (which is very good, don't get me wrong),Works well for most people and I do not have a virus program running in the back ground (I have one installed, but it is "on demand" only, it does not actively protect my PC),So no realtime scanning ?!? and I do not have a software firewall installed, windows firewall is disabled, You will probably have a Hardware Firewall ? also I use IE6 which has a reputation for being spyware/malware prone.Lucky. If you correctly harden your PC according to Microsoft's XP Hardening Guide, you can theoretically be safe from any threats. However, not everyone has the skillsets to follow the 100's of pages to set up the PC. Hence, people choose to buy/get programs do it for them. So the question is, do you all want my advice? and if I give it, will you follow it religously?Feel free to give advice when people ask for it. We have lot's of people here who can use it.	KiwiTT_NZ (233)
455945	2006-05-19 03:48:00	You will probably have a Hardware Firewall I have a NAT router, but I also have a laptop on my network which is currently infected with a virus, and yet none of my other PCs are infected. If you correctly harden your PC according to Microsoft's XP Hardening Guide, you can theoretically be safe from any threats. However, not everyone has the skillsets to follow the 100's of pages to set up the PC. Hence, people choose to buy/get programs do it for them. I didn't follow a hardening guide, and I'm not going to write 100's of pages. this is pretty much the reason why I don't want to write it, nay sayers who slag it off, then the rest don't bother because of the slagging.	Deimos (5715)
455946	2006-05-19 03:50:00	Nothing wrong with not having any virus scanners, if u dont get any files, or use P2P programs . Nothing wrong with not using a firewall either . If you dont do the above . Nothing wrong with XP SP2's firewall either . If its on . Only thing is, if u do get something like a trojan (somehow), XP's firewall wont stop / block it from phoning home . Only thing I wouldnt use would be IE 6 . The more MS updates bugs IE 6 has, the more sluggish, it seems to get . Except for updates . I'll rather use Opera, or Firefox . If I didnt have a lot of ram, I wouldnt run a firewall either . I'm only using firewalls on these, coz one of the other PC's belong to a 17 yr old . And he's into P2P . And I just finished reformatting his system (which was covered in spyware / malware / trojans etc, a few months ago) .	Speedy Gonzales (78)
455947	2006-05-19 03:57:00	I'm a heavy internet user, last month I did 80GB of downloading, this month, I have a cap, so I'm now restricted to 40GB a month, I use P2P a lot, and download a lot, always have. I have tested these solutions on known spyware sites (that previously infected me).	Deimos (5715)
455948	2006-05-19 04:00:00	I have successfully used one of the many exploits available to penetrate a test PC, which only had one port open and installed a trojan, which allowed me to remote control it through this port which was behind a NAT'd router. After that, with successive exploits I was able to upgrade my access level from USER to SYSTEM (which is higher than administrator) and take full control of it. This exercise had proved to me that all users should be very prudent in how they use their PC. They should also use as much protection as possible.	KiwiTT_NZ (233)
455949	2006-05-19 04:01:00	I have successfully used one of the many exploits available to penetrate a PC, which only had one port open and installed a trojan, which allowed me to remote control it through this port which was behind a NAT'd router. After that, with successive exploits I was able to upgrade my access level from USER to SYSTEM (which is higher than administrator) and take full control of it. This exercise had proved to me that all users should be very prudent in how they use their PC. They should also use as much protection as possible. Details? what OS? what port? what trojan?	Deimos (5715)
455950	2006-05-19 04:03:00	Details?what OS? what port? what trojan?Windows 2003 Server - Port 80. Trojan, I keep that info to myself as it was part of a security exercise.	KiwiTT_NZ (233)
455951	2006-05-19 04:05:00	can I get some more info on the server? was it running SP1? did it have all the current patches? how long ago?	Deimos (5715)
1 2 3