it only took one click!

[deniseO30]

Some of you geeky types may have better words to describe what happened to my computer.. It was infected with a "redirecting search trojan horse" I've heard the term "rootkit" a few times now. After weeks and weeks of trying to remove, fix, patch etc, I finally got another hard drive from my IT friend. "have to reformat" was his suggestion. Well I'm back online!
So, be careful what you click on! The sites that pop up and really look legit, like a real window from Micro soft, or a antivirus site a warning that looks just like a windows warning.... one click and bam! Be careful or you will get what you don't wish for!

[ssneade]

Originally Posted by deniseO30

Some of you geeky types may have better words to describe what happened to my computer.. It was infected with a "redirecting search trojan horse" I've heard the term "rootkit" a few times now. After weeks and weeks of trying to remove, fix, patch etc, I finally got another hard drive from my IT friend. "have to reformat" was his suggestion. Well I'm back online!
So, be careful what you click on! The sites that pop up and really look legit, like a real window from Micro soft, or a antivirus site a warning that looks just like a windows warning.... one click and bam! Be careful or you will get what you don't wish for!

yep 'sall it takes is one click. my young son or wifey one clicked on something that looked like legit and BAM, downloaded a virus and an antivirus program to boot. you would think there would be laws against those kind of attacks, but the government has too many other fish to fry...........


fortunately i was able to restore the drive to original. lost a lot of programs, but it saved all pics and docs. whada pain in the ass.

[edguy3]

I hate when that happens!!

Holiday time computer advice season is upon us, so, I might as well
put my standard responses in this forum as well.

1) When using a windows machine,

a) Run windows update automatically and religiously
b) Create a non-privileged user and log in to that instead of the admin account. It will prevent some issues ( not all)
c) Create separate accounts for your kids, non-priv'd, of course.
d) Run antivirus software. keep it up to date ( only use "well known" brands) There have been instances of AV software that really was a virus.
e) Run firefox instead of IE, firefox exploits seem to be less common than MS internet explorer on windows.

2) If your finances allow, consider a MAC. it will cost twice as much, but if you're an ordinary individual user, it will be a pleasant experience unless you are a technophobe or cant stand change. Unfortunately, much corporate software will not run on this platform. It is not immune to viruses and the like, but, it will go a lot further.

3) If your finances dont permit a mac, try running ubuntu linux. It will even run on those machines that can no longer run windows. (It's a geeky system with much of the geekiness covered up, but, consider the source.)

4) If your hard drive crashed today, how long would it take you to rebuild your files, pictures, etc. What if your house ( or boat) burned down?

5) Use openoffice instead of paying the microsoft word and office tax.

6) Memory is cheap. a bit more will probably make your PC last longer.

7) You can get internet on your boat without satellites using RFC 1149.

I'm sure I forgot a few of the standard items.