Infected website, download fake AV for testing. Safe?

ken9122 · 15 Apr 2010

Ben, I've had to cleanup several computers with these infections. My advice is don't play with them.

Ken

Jaxryley · 15 Apr 2010

Neverhavemoney said:

Jax,
I dont understand virtual computing. Care to go more into it? Im looking to do testing with this, because i understand that you can't become infected but i have no idea how. Can you explain what it does?

You certainly can get get infected using a virtual system but on reboot the system returns to exactly how it was before entering virtual mode.

There a few different aspects such as sandboxie which creates a confined secure workspace within the real system.

Returnil, Shadow Defender and Wondershare Time Freeze sort of create a copy of the entire system that all the work is done in and is gone at reboot.

And then you have snapshot apps which I haven't really used but I have heard good and bad things about them, mostly good though.

May be best if you tread lightly and have a read through a few topics on the subject over at Wilders.

Light virtualization: Returnil/PowerShadow/ShadowDefender/ShadowUser Pro - Wilders Security Forums

sandboxing & virtualization - Wilders Security Forums

Neverhavemoney · 15 Apr 2010

Im very knowledgeable with infections, and things like this. I was head of the Vistax64 Infection Resolving Team. It was a great group of people we had.

ken9122 said:

Ben, I've had to cleanup several computers with these infections. My advice is don't play with them.

Ken

tw33k · 15 Apr 2010

The very fact that you had to ask this in a public forum makes me wonder about your "knowledge with infections" Like Corrine said, there are plent of "articles" and videos around on this. It's not as if you would your "report" would be a world first. My opinion: waste of time.

SIW2 · 15 Apr 2010

It's not as if you would your "report" would be a world first. My opinion: waste of time.

Thats what they said to me when I climbed Everest.

Jaxryley · 15 Apr 2010

Forums are about asking for advice regardless on your expertise.

I've done heaps of things on my machine such as running an nLited XP VM in a 2 gig ramdrive. What's it good for, probably nothing else than a learning curve in knowing that I can do it.

And yep I work voluntarily with an antimalware team of great fellas that are so far ahead of me in pc knowledge it's embarrassing.

smarteyeball · 17 Apr 2010

Neverhavemoney said:

I posted this on here because I wanted people, honest people who work with the stuff to let me know certain things about doing this.

Settle mate :)

If you don't wish to run a VM - do you have enough room on your HDD for a 'throw away' installation? or even a seperate HDD?

You could could always dual boot with another installation, infect it - Do your best to fix it and if worse comes to worse, scrap the installation.

The only potential problem would be running the risk of a particularly nasty bugger getting into your MBR/boot data and infect all installed machines.

As for Virtual Machines, Virtual Box would be the quickest and easiest way to get a VM up and running.

Just don't allow it to share any of the Hosts folders.

Neverhavemoney · 17 Apr 2010

I am not going to be installing this software to my main computer. I have an old computer. I am going to be transfering it to my old computer via flash drive.

Thanks,
Ben

Neverhavemoney · 17 Apr 2010

My old computer isn't connected to the internet so I can't download it right from there. I refuse to incase an infection travels across my network.

Thanks,
Ben