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Worms

 
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Greenhornet84



Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Uper Darby PA

PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:41 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Maybe one of you gals or guys can help me. I know there are a lot of German cars freaks who are also Geeks. My problem: despite cleaning weekly for viruses, cashed URLs, cookies and such, my computer acquired 4 worms. Net.working, Wild Tangent. AdDestroyer and Virtual Bouncer. I was able to remove Net.working and Wild Tangent. I pursched a Program from Pest Patrol {which I now think is suspect) but my problem is that I can't find a fix for AdDestroyer or Virtual Bouncer. I use AdAware and Norton weekly but these worms are under the radar. MS {McAfee dosn't do worms} claims no knowledge of these bugs. Any help will be appriciated.These things are monsters.
Mark
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BD325ic



Joined: 31 Mar 2003
Posts: 525
Location: Phoenix, AZ

PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:53 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Brother I feel Your Pain!

I don't know how to get rid of your specific viruses but I bought a new computer for Christmas and promptly got the NT Authority shutdown worm. The computer would reboot all by itself.

I did a Google search and found out many folks had gotten the same bug and there was a complete writeup on how to get rid of it.

Try a search and see if others have found the cure for your woes. Hope this helps, good luck.

Bruce
95 325ic
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Greenhornet84



Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Uper Darby PA

PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:54 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Bruce'
Thanks, but it didn't work. They {NT Authority) charged me $10 and then didn't have a solution. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I have adAware anf Norton on the machine and I've bought two other programs to try to fix this problem. I'm. stuch. Help
Mark
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JRS



Joined: 09 Jun 2002
Posts: 2386
Location: USA

PostPosted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 8:21 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Mark,

Instead of being frustrated and searching for a 'perfect' solution, have you considered re-imaging (aka Restoring) your computer ? 90% of computers sold from 2002 have Restore/Recovery CDs. The only thing they don't restore is unbundled software and data. Technically, you should already have the installation CDs for the unbundled software and data can be written to a CD-R. Just be sure NOT to write any *.EXE files to the CD-R. Worms do not exist in data files (but viruses do). Worms primarily exist in EXE files or ZIP files that contain EXE files.

The Restore/Recovery CDs usually take 5-20 minutes to complete. XP Professional does have the ability to "restore back" to a given date but that doesn't remove the worm.

After you do the Restore, I recommend that you visit the Windows Update center at Microsoft.com and download all of the critical patches. This will ensure that any open 'ports' in IE will be fixed and will stop any worms/viruses from being passed onto your computer.

If you did install a ton of software AFTER purchasing the computer, then it will be a bit time consuming to get everything back to the way you want it. But go ahead and look in the Symantec Ghost. Ghost is a product that will take an "image" of your computer hard drive and you can create a ghost image. If you ever crash or get hit with another worm, you just use that image to restore your computer - and voila - you get everything back BEFORE the worm/virus outbreak but only to that given date that you created the image.

For those that have a laptop and desktop, there is a gadget being sold on eBay (which I bought and will arrive in 4 days) that will allow me to connect my laptop hard drive as a secondary/slave drive onto my desktop and I can then Ghost an image of my laptop drive.

When you ghost an image, it is recommended that you have a secondary/slave drive where the ghost image will be created. I'm sure you can either borrow someone's 5-10GB hard drive. Or go visit a Mom-n-Pop computer shop and offer them $10 for a working 6GB hard drive.

Overall, you'll spend $35-$75 but think of it as less headache.

Good luck.

JRS
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Greenhornet84



Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Uper Darby PA

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 5:16 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

JRS,
Thanks for the reply. Couple things:
1} I downloaded {bought} several programs Nuke Spywear and Pest Patrol. Both found the infected files and suggest deleting all infectedfiles, but this worm is also in my Registry files. If I do that, won't I have to reinstall Windows? I have a set of rescue disks but didn't make them until the computer was infected.
2} I think I got these worms because my wife HAD instant messenger. There is a Norton warning about messenger.
3} I guess I'll buy the extra program from Norton but I gotta wonder why I had to go through this horsepucky.
4} Just my opinion but I think, because of similarities {frankly laziness} in the worm and Pest Patrols Home Page that Pest Patrol put these worms out to sell thier solution.
Thanks again JRS
Mark
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JRS



Joined: 09 Jun 2002
Posts: 2386
Location: USA

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:00 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Mark,

Worms and viruses that infect the registry can be 'eradicated' if you had an opportunity to create a backup of your registery. However, if you restore a registry (or even attempt to do a regedit on the registry), you may be restoring a registry setting 'to a certain point'.

There's no solid proof that the anti-virus people are the ones creating the actual viruses. However, I would like to point out that the code-breakers for new variants tend to be from the overseas subsidiaries of the anti-virus corporation. For example, in the latest major-virus, TrendMicro had a fix from their Philippines location. I beleive the original virus came from Asia. Coincidence ? Maybe.

The things to primarily do to protect yourself from worms and viruses is to:

1. Get a decent anti-virus software and do a weekly download of any new virus patches. They are free from the corporation (e.g. Symantec).

2. Create a copy of your registry and keep in in a CDRW CD.

3. Ghost your machine at least twice a year.

4. For those that have wired/wireless broadband routers, make sure you have WEP enabled (at least 64-bit) and don't broadcst your SSID. If you do, then you're susceptible to hackers that could be 1/2 mile away. For those that have Linksys wireless routers, your SSID is LINKSYS and your default password is ADMIN. That's not hard to find since Linksys publishes this information on their website.

Why worry about broadband routers ? Well, they have ports that are open unless you close them. Worms are introduced to your computer system via three major avenues:

A. Shared file via some infected CD or diskette (or even these new USB HD devices).

B. An open port such as the one that allows you to do a remote takeover of your machine from another machine via the IP address.

C. Email. Infected email.

Be careful out there...

JRS
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Billo
Site Admin


Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Posts: 2047
Location: Oklahoma City

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:57 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Hey,

This is a topic that is a constant concern in my line of work. I have about 200 computers on a wide area network that has every conceivable type of user. The oldest virus like problems that I have encountered has been a worm. JRS has some very good advice and there’s no use in me repeating what was said. I’ll put a couple of links below that may be of help to you. I’ve found ‘distributed.net’ to be an invaluable resource in providing ‘wormfree’ solutions. Because of the nature of the beast (or critter if it may be) they have a vested interest in keeping worms off of computers that participate in their worldwide project to solve security-factoring challenges. Once again, I ditto what JRS said and encourage you to check out the link below. The second link is Symantec’s description of what distributed.net is. The third link should start a download of ‘wormfree’ which is the same as on the distributed.net website. I’ve used this solution several times with 100% effectiveness. I’d be interested to see if you’ve gotten into something that it won’t solve. If you try it, keep me posted.

distributed.net's info about eliminating and containing worms

Symantec's review of distributed.net

The wormfree utility

Bill
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Greenhornet84



Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Uper Darby PA

PostPosted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 2:23 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Thanks for the help. I got it all cleaned up using Spybot, available as a free dowmload. I found it as a link to one of the sites Bill provided. Frank I would have needed help reading the Help file.
Thanks again
Mark
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Greenhornet84



Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Uper Darby PA

PostPosted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:39 pm    Post subject: Worms Reply with quote

Hi Guys and Gals,
I'm back. Went offline April 1st. Officialy what happened was "They don't know". Unofficially (employees talk a lot when they're trying to make nice to a very pissed off customer) They added some new users onto my line and instead of splitting off,they rerouted the line moving me (in linear feet from 16200 feet from the Verizon connection box to over that magical 18000 feet.Long story short, it took them over two weeks to determine that thier change blew out my modem. I was actually talking to a customer service rep in India who told me that because I had moved my house past the 18,000 feet limit, I was out of loopness. I'm less worried about out sourcing jobs. I was talking to people whose English was poor. Don' think it will last.
Glad to be back,
Mark
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