I have just survived my first major Virus attack !

netwhizkid

Hi,
Just to alert anyone who get a so called joke e-mail about a shop not selling cat food to old grannies delete this NOW. It crashed my entire system, now i have being saying that forwarded e-mail's are the scourge of the earth for ages but now i know why. It was my sister that opened the offending e-mail. Fair play to Dell, their excellent customer support helped me save me files and we did a system restore which restored my pc to its state last sunday. If people wanna read jokes why not visit the homour forum here, provided you don't open any links you should be virus free.

Basically i am using to this thread to publicly thank Dell (as they seem to get booed alot) man if i'd lost my HD i'd be up S**t creek without a paddle, anyway does anyone have anygood ideas on affordable easy backup plans, just incase this calamity happens again. The dell guy said i was fortunate as if my pc was not so high powered that it might not have surivived this onslaught intact.

Think twice before opening non-essential joke "spam"

Regards netwhizkid

Wertz

Just get a spam blocker and keep your AV updated and keep your OS patched.
In 3+ years online my only 2 virus infections came from P2P networks (karma I s'pose).
Anyone that opens attachments in eMail especially from someone they don't know, without scanning the attachment first deserves to loose their stuff.

As for easy back up, just buy a 2nd harddrive and slave it to your current one....then put all your stuff on there. Or you could just burn your stuff to DVD-RW.

Not sure why you had to get onto Dell about a virus...I use symantec knowledge base if there's a removal tool or info I need. I like Dell products but I'll leave the troubleshooting to someone that has english as a first language...

beller b

netwhizkid wrote:

Hi,
Just to alert anyone who get a so called joke e-mail about a shop not selling cat food to old grannies delete this NOW. It crashed my entire system, now i have being saying that forwarded e-mail's are the scourge of the earth for ages but now i know why. It was my sister that opened the offending e-mail. Fair play to Dell, their excellent customer support helped me save me files and we did a system restore which restored my pc to its state last sunday. If people wanna read jokes why not visit the homour forum here, provided you don't open any links you should be virus free.

Basically i am using to this thread to publicly thank Dell (as they seem to get booed alot) man if i'd lost my HD i'd be up S**t creek without a paddle, anyway does anyone have anygood ideas on affordable easy backup plans, just incase this calamity happens again. The dell guy said i was fortunate as if my pc was not so high powered that it might not have surivived this onslaught intact.

Think twice before opening non-essential joke "spam"

Regards netwhizkid

After getting caught that easy I think you should change that user name!

leeroybrown

Basically it comes down to this:

If you put a Windows install on the internet without patches, a firewall, up to date AV software and spyware protection it'll be riddled before too long.

MrVestek

LOL stupid dell techies. So let me get this straight, if your PC was really underpowered it couldn't have been saved? Sounds like jargon to me. FYI, you should have had proper anti virus software and a firewall installed that would have picked it up in the first place, then booted into safe mode and scanned with the anti virus software.

jessy

netwhizkid wrote:

The dell guy said i was fortunate as if my pc was not so high powered that it might not have surivived this onslaught intact.

I’m afraid he was lying to ya there, what has the power of you machine to do with stopping a virus? What AV/Firewall are you running? Easy and cheap backup = DVD-/+R.

Gone West

Do dells not come with norton installed and up to date when you buy them?
Your *sister* opened the email, eh?

Terra

well it depends a virus can cause systems to grind to a halt. if the system is too slow it may simply take to long to fix and a reinstall would be easier.

but the underpowered thing is a bit iffy.

Still he helped you get your system back up and runing and thats what counts.

So fair play to Dell. Normally a tech might just tell you to reinstall if they weren't bothered.

MrVestek

Incidentially: http://www.illwillpress.com/tech.html

netwhizkid

I have got a Mcafee Personal firewall plus anti-virus also from mcafee, ive got 3.4Ghz of power and 160GB memory, i am reviewing all my anti-virus software after this episode though and plan to upgrade very soon.

Regards netwhizkid

Canis Lupus

beller b wrote:

After getting caught that easy I think you should change that user name!

lol rep +1

MrVestek

3.4 Ghz 'of power' you say? 160GB of 'memory'??? Erh no, you have 160Gb of storage and 3.4Ghz of clockspeed... clockspeed aint king ya know. Besides the specs of your PC have nothing.... and I mean NOTHING to do with your PC's ability of fending off a virus.

Wertz

Achilles wrote:

Besides the specs of your PC have nothing.... and I mean NOTHING to do with your PC's ability of fending off a virus.

If anything a faster CPU will run the virus' code that teensy bit faster and thus install it on your harddrive that little bit quicker. So you're better off with a 486 running win95....

rsynnott

in fairness, if you're using an operating system that supports it, the No-Execute thing in newer processors will defend against many security vulnerability. Except I'm fairly certain Windows doesn't support it.

jessy

rsynnott wrote:

in fairness, if you're using an operating system that supports it, the No-Execute thing in newer processors will defend against many security vulnerability. Except I'm fairly certain Windows doesn't support it.

your nearly right, Newer AMD/INtel CPU's have a built in operation to check programs memory access Boundrys which means all Buffer Overflow vulnerabilitys are not really vulnerability if your running a newer chip. got nothing to do with windows though.

zap

the fact you have a dell machine and that you called tech support about about a virus I would strongly consider changing your username.

skywalker

Achilles wrote:

3.4 Ghz 'of power' you say? 160GB of 'memory'??? Erh no, you have 160Gb of storage and 3.4Ghz of clockspeed... clockspeed aint king ya know. Besides the specs of your PC have nothing.... and I mean NOTHING to do with your PC's ability of fending off a virus.

lol. Was gonna post most of that myself till I saw your post, netwhizkid, seriously stop while your behind.

Khannie

Ah go easy on the poor lad(y). A lot of people call hard drive space "memory" and, in fairness, it is.

We were all n00b's once.

What matters is the desire to learn.

tba

The battle dosen't end here. Grab a good firewall.

Zonealarm and sygate are free and work well. Keep your AV up to date and like you said don't open forwards from strangers.

rsynnott

jessy wrote:

your nearly right, Newer AMD/INtel CPU's have a built in operation to check programs memory access Boundrys which means all Buffer Overflow vulnerabilitys are not really vulnerability if your running a newer chip. got nothing to do with windows though.

Yes it does. It requires software support. I just had a look. Windows XP SP2 supports it; previous version of windows DON'T. In addition, Linux and some BSDs support it.

jimmycrackcorm

netwhizkid wrote:

Hi,
It was my sister that opened the offending e-mail.

What type of attachment was it?

zap

Khannie wrote:

Ah go easy on the poor lad(y). A lot of people call hard drive space "memory" and, in fairness, it is.

We were all n00b's once.

What matters is the desire to learn.

that's all well and good but look at his username

jessy

zap wrote:

that's all well and good but look at his username

Ah come on now, was little john really little? its just a fricken name, and he did the right thing if he wasn’t sure, why pay for dell support if you don’t use it?

Fibonacci

Man, the vultures are out today.

**** happens. that's why you back up your files.

Tell your sister to stop looking at porn.

netwhizkid

It turns out i didn't survive it at all, this morn when i turned the pc on zilch, nothing. A black screen is up saying that C:\Windows\Config\System is missing, dell are trying to extort €50 from me to fix it. Now i'm fuming all i'm left with is this crappy Win 98 Packard Bell but at least it works. Would there be anyway to fix this without paying dell ? It turns out my mcafee "anti-virus" was useless and that it was the same as having none at all. They said that spyware and adware were to blame. Like if i could just log in i'd download some free software to clear them free. They recomended Avg from downloads.com Im really up the creek here as i was about to embark on my big satellite broadband project and after paying dell nearly €1450 im really p**sed. Would the fact that i was under 18 and they sold it to me be of any use to me in my case for them to fix it free. I also payed for it with my dads Credit card without his consent although he didn't mind as it was my xmas gift. Would these two fact help me to persuade them to fix it for free.

Regards netwhizkid, :- i'm thinking this might not be the best username for me right now. maybe stupidpcuser might be better.

Wertz

netwhizkid wrote:

It turns out i didn't survive it at all, this morn when i turned the pc on zilch, nothing. A black screen is up saying that C:\Windows\Config\System is missing, dell are trying to extort €50 from me to fix it. Now i'm fuming all i'm left with is this crappy Win 98 Packard Bell but at least it works. Would there be anyway to fix this without paying dell ? It turns out my mcafee "anti-virus" was useless and that it was the same as having none at all. They said that spyware and adware were to blame. Like if i could just log in i'd download some free software to clear them free. They recomended Avg from downloads.com Im really up the creek here as i was about to embark on my big satellite broadband project and after paying dell nearly €1450 im really p**sed. Would the fact that i was under 18 and they sold it to me be of any use to me in my case for them to fix it free. I also payed for it with my dads Credit card without his consent although he didn't mind as it was my xmas gift. Would these two fact help me to persuade them to fix it for free.

Regards netwhizkid, :- i'm thinking this might not be the best username for me right now. maybe stupidpcuser might be better.

Damn man, that sucks.
Not sure on the legal side of things and Dell are prolly within their rights to charge you for...what are they charging you for again?

In your situ (my config files got royally pwned a few months back and windows wouldn't boot for love or money) I'd run out and buy/borrow a harddrive and fit it in the second drive bay...it's not that difficult and there are guides on the web. Install XP on it. and set the jumper to slave or cable-set.
Drag all your data that you wanna keep onto the new drive ;music, movies, settings, eMail(NOT the infected one ) etc. and use your XP install disc (assuming Dell furnished you with one) to do a repair install on your original HDD. Then put all your data back on there.
There may be other ways to do this but I find this way the easiest from a non-techie perspective...
Good luck with whatever you decide...

MrVestek

Erh, why would he need to copy over all of his data if he's only doing a repair install? A repair install doesn't require you to format the hard disk or anything. That's pretty fecked up advice tbh, disregard what the last user just posted.

Why not just get a copy of a Windows XP disc and do a reinstall perhaps or a repair, and if prompted for a CD key use the one from the sticker that's on your system.

Wertz

Achilles wrote:

Erh, why would he need to copy over all of his data if he's only doing a repair install? A repair install doesn't require you to format the hard disk or anything. That's pretty fecked up advice tbh, disregard what the last user just posted.

Why not just get a copy of a Windows XP disc and do a reinstall perhaps or a repair, and if prompted for a CD key use the one from the sticker that's on your system.

I was of the impression that a repair install could wipe your data. Anything I read at he time I had to do the installation told me to back up any files or data. Being non-techie, I take the advie I find.
Since the data/documents are about the only thing I have of value, I tend to take the safe route. If that's bad advice then so be it...

The General

netwhizkid wrote:

Hi,
Just to alert anyone who get a so called joke e-mail about a shop not selling cat food to old grannies delete this NOW. It crashed my entire system, now i have being saying that forwarded e-mail's are the scourge of the earth for ages but now i know why. It was my sister that opened the offending e-mail. Fair play to Dell, their excellent customer support helped me save me files and we did a system restore which restored my pc to its state last sunday. If people wanna read jokes why not visit the homour forum here, provided you don't open any links you should be virus free.

Basically i am using to this thread to publicly thank Dell (as they seem to get booed alot) man if i'd lost my HD i'd be up S**t creek without a paddle, anyway does anyone have anygood ideas on affordable easy backup plans, just incase this calamity happens again. The dell guy said i was fortunate as if my pc was not so high powered that it might not have surivived this onslaught intact.

Think twice before opening non-essential joke "spam"

Regards netwhizkid

net whiz kid me bum :rolleyes:

zap

this gets better and better, how is using mcafee the same as having no anti virus at all, second you don't need dell to do anything just do a format and re install, (use linux it dosen't have any where near as much problems as windozs does with security) secondly I wouldn't go telling dell that you used a credit card without consent as its fraud even though your dad dosen't mind, dell don't care what age you are if it's €50 it's €50 whether your 3 or 93 as I said before just do a re-install there is nothing wrong with your hardware.