The time has come the walrus said......

...to speak of many things! Of Viruses and Trojans, and other stuff that stings!

( With apologies to Lewis Carroll The Walrus and The Carpenter )

There seems to be a regular spate of this stuff at the moment, and despite all efforts by various bodies, organisations, and individuals, it is increasing all the time, and also becoming more virulent. If you become infected with some malware now, it will simply destroy your system. You may be able to remove a "simple" virus or trojan, and reset what it altered, or repair what it damaged, but in many cases your only sensible recourse is to wipe your system and start afresh.

This is not the fault of the system you happen to be using, it is of course the fault of the people who somehow gain perverse enjoyment or satisfaction by causing problems for people they don't even know.

There are various ways and means of protecting your system. A good firewall, a good anti-virus system, but the most important barrier to these things is YOU!

If you download things from various sites, then at least use some form of checker to see whether the site is reliable. WOT is pretty good, or Link Extend for Firefox.

If you are unsure of a program or a link, then DON'T CLICK ON IT !!!

The same applies to e-mails, other media which people may offer you, pirated copies of various software, etc. If you want to be safe, AVOID ALL CONTACT with such material. Don't let anybody install things on your machine, and don't swap files you don't know anything about.

Once your system is actually infected with various things, it is invariably too late to do anything much about it. Your system is compromised, and there is no easy way to find out how, or to repair the damage, even if you find and remove the malware.

There is no point ranting and railing at the system, or at anybody else, especially not at people who are trying to help you. Of course you are angry and upset, you may have lost valuable data, incurred financial losses, lost prized family photos, videos, and all sorts of things.

The ONLY way to prevent such losses is to make regular backups. It is also sensible to keep your data away from system files, as malware only basically attacks system files, the worst case is that you lose your system and have to re-install it, but your data is not compromised.

As many here are doubtless aware, one of my main diagnostic stand-by applications is Malwarebytes. The free version is ONLY A DETECTION AND REMOVAL SYSTEM. It can not repair any damage done to your system by the malware it detects and removes. If you want full PROTECTION at least as far as this is possible, then you need the full version, which prevents malware from running. This is pretty good, but nothing is 100% effective against all forms of malware.

So, the first line of defence against malware is you, and how you use your system. All the other things are basically back-stops for things you miss, or can not check easily yourself. A little common sense and discipline will prevent far more problems than all the anti-virus systems available, and it will also limit any damage or problems which may occur if you are unfortunate enough to have your system infected. You can just wipe it, replace it with a good backup image, or re-install it. The malware is at worst then only a relatively minor annoyance, and not a major disaster. just because you have a good backup!

You do have a good backup don't you?

Regards....Mike Connor

This is great advice.

There is plenty of info on the web about the software, and I doubt I could add to that. Also, as I now actively avoid using it, I am not the best person to elaborate on its shortcomings, or the lack of them.

Regards...Mike Connor

malexous said:

You mention it unreliable in the regard of site checkers. At least, that is how it comes across to me. Is that what you meant?

As far as security is concerned, Internet Explorer is much better than it once was.

That was an unfortunate juxtaposition of sentences. I have edited it.

Regards....Mike Connor

I be he said:

People are getting infected from non-dangerous sites daily

Can you provide an explanation to this statement? What do you classify as non-dangerous?

I be he said:

People are getting infected from non-dangerous sites daily. Its not a case of bad surfing habits as it was not so long ago.
If you want to be safe from malware download Sandboxie now and ditch the A/V.

You can not be infected by "non-dangerous sites" per definition. That is a complete contradiction in terms.

Advising people to "ditch the A/V " is just stupid and irresponsible.

Quote from the Sandboxie site;

QUOTE
How safe would I be, by using Sandboxie? You would be quite safe using Sandboxie. It should be noted that, from time to time, people are able to find some vulnerability in Sandboxie, an open hole through which malicious software can still infiltrate the system.
This happens once every few months, on average, and is quickly resolved by closing the hole that is the attack vector.
Thus it's a good idea to have more traditional anti-malware software. This is is the subject of the following question.

Do I need other solutions if I use Sandboxie?
Sandboxie may be your first line of defense, but it should certainly be complemented by the more traditional anti-virus and anti-malware solutions. These solutions can let you know if your system does become infected in any way.
Typically, those other solutions employ various forms of pattern matching to discover malicious software and other threats. Sandboxie, on the other hand, quite simply does not trust any software code enough to let it out of the sandbox.
The combination of the two approaches should keep malicious software -- which is serving the interest of other unknown parties -- out of your computer.

UNQUOTE


Regards....Mike Connor