How do we get viruses?

[Kees]

There is a lot of talk about AV programs in this forum, with very little said about how we get infected. I had liked to hear about your experiences on this point, because it may help us to decide what protection we actually need. There is a lot of paranoia! As for me, the first virus that came to my PC was Bugbear, sent by email, and stopped before it could do any harm (fortunately, because it is a nasty little bugger). Another one came together with a tantrix game which I bought in a glossy box, and could only be removed by booting up from a DOS disk. After that quite a few malware specimen were caught through running an AV. There is something to be learned from the latter, because they were all disguised as handy tools that could be downloaded free from the internet. So, in fact, their occurrence was all my own doing. This raises the question: do we need to install an AV? Just do not download free programs which pose as had handy auxiliaries on the web. I tend to believe that if we have a good antimalware program (such as A-squared) and a good firewall (such Online Armor), there is little need to install antivirus programs, as long as we do not dive at every free program.
Now, guys, how did you catch your viruses (if any).

[Odie]

I think the most common answer by members on this forum would be through downloading warez/key gens

[Kees]

Exactly, so if you don't do that, what need is there for an antivirus program (as distinct from antimal- and spyware)?

[nivek_hcerg]

Others get them from "ads" or misleading sites. Example, rogueware sites (not all) open a page where it "scans" your pc and display fake inexistant viruses and convinces them to download the rogueware which is in itself a virus.

[laylow21]

mines from porn sites.

[Raymond]

mines from porn sites.

LOL that is honest

As for me, my computer was twice infected by virus because of autorun.inf from USB flash drive. After totally disabling it via registry hack, I no longer have that problem.

[mischief_ash]

Usb drives... I think is the most common cause nowadays.

Friends come in, plug their pen drive, do their work... and then when they're gone... leave a lot of work to be done...

If you don't use email and warez/crack and don't use usb drives then the chances of getting infected in very low.

I bet you do use one of these things. And it's always Prevention is Way Better Than Cure. You wouldn't one day like to wake up and find your that your computer won't boot up and you lose all the important data.

An antivirus may use a little of your resources but then it gives you enough security and most of the good antivirus software detect both viruses and spuware.

Using common sense is good but stupidity is the being of a human being. Everyone makes a mistake sometimes. Antiviruses come in handy then.

Consider the line from Frank Sinatra's MY WAY:

Regrets I've had a few, but too few to mention.

[Rush]

I will readily admit that every single time Ive gotten a true virus, its been completely my own fault. Damn that internet porn.
I believe that on the home user level, which is by far the most vulnerable, indiscretion is the leading vehicle by which a virus is delivered. Followed swiftly by curiosity, misconception and just plain ignorance. I fallen victim to them all. Those, however, are just delivery methods.
I think, and I may be wrong, that the lines between the threats that face the home user are often blurred. Most often by the ones we go to protect us. Anyone wishing to sell their product, will find ways to pump it up by calling everything an infection. Yet not every tracking cookie a virus, and often software that is intended to track a user is not intended to harm that users system.
Having a proficient AV program is absolutely crucial, because of the reason that we get viruses, which is not human error. Its human ingenuity. There are those out there, that wish to hurt people. The same as with every other aspect of life. That is what I like about any anti virus that updates hourly. The vehicle that is used to deliver a virus will change and evolve. True that staying out of the ghetto of porn and pirated software is by far the simplest way to stay out of harms way, but make no mistake about it, if these people find a way to get to you without you doing anything stupid, they will. If and when they do, speed, will be their primary weapon, and our best defense. An attack can literally spread as fast as information. One truly designed to take your system out, will not need more than one chance.

[laylow21]

nice post ..

most threats these days come in the form of trojans and not olde worlde viruses.

simple precautions like never opening email or messenger attachments unless absolutely sure there from a secure source etc .. same goes for downloads always download to your desktop and scan the download before installing.

take some time to aquaint yourself with the added security features in vista and set it up tight.

a short story for you all.
man buys new first computer .. spends best part of £1k .. gets computer setup by quassi pro and looks forward to playing with expensive new entertainment centre etc .. 3 weeks later its all gone pear shaped and no option but to phone pro .. he calls around and half an hour later alls well and he is £30 better off .. this scemario carried on for months and atleast 10 further visits.

it started to P me off and i always took note of what he was doing but didnt really understand it.

i then had another person look at it he explained to me about antiviruses and anti/spy/malwares as i had non just my ms firewall the other guy had left my comp naked and just kept coming back running a few programs of a disk to clean it and charging me £30 .

i then went on a long learning curve .. however the underlying problem was a bootvirus and it taunted me for weeks .. eventually i had a reformat and used my recently aquired knowledge to reduce my chances of infection agian when my machine was returned in pristine condition.

it was xp and i had a veritable arny of antis running with only ever fps or minor probs and no more diallers as that was one of my main concerns after getting caught out by a rogue dialler to the tune of over £700 .. as you can see i had an expensive and frustrating baptism in computing..

i have held a great interest in the 6 years since in comp security since ,, and if anything went from one extreme to the other ..welcome to the world of security paranioa .. i simlpy got my machine reformatted every 12 months regardless of its running state.
i used over the years avg spysweeper and pc doctor all paid versions without any problems.
avg may lag a little behind now .. but i used the free version for a couple of years after my 2 years of the pay version without any hiccups really.. i did however pick up a rootkit that spysweeper flagged but could not remove .. again avg came to the rescue and their beta rootkit remover sorted it .. but that rootkit and my subsequent research was the reason i decided on a reformat every 12 months as stealthed nasties were at the time nearly impossible to detect so i took no chances and started fresh each year.
i also trialed all top brands for their full trial periods to gain experience of them all .. so when i comment here i am commenting on real experiences not word of mouth..

im now of the opinion that the fear of getting a computor nastie far exceeds the actual reality .. my reasons for thinking this way is this .. my new setup came with a 90 day norten trial i used it a month then uninstalled .. i started to use nod32 av. .. and that was it nothing else.

in the 9 months i went bareback i never got infected by anything remotely serious or even damaging.

i now use spysweeper a/s which i obtained courtesy of raymonds blog here..
however i did take common sense steps of avoidence .. like using alternative browsers firefox for now .. and when firefox gets to popular i will change again .. have messenger set to manual etc.. .. also with xp i would strongly urge the use of a couple of hostfiles { http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm }.
ive never used torrents s i used limewire free and always scanned my download file with multiscans after each session however im pretty sure its where the rootkit came from.

biuld yourself an army of free scanners both online and off to use as a second opinion only as this gives peace of mind .. and happy puting.


ps rootkits are the new black. .. they are also the real root of any serious problems the next 3 years will throw at us..

[brayden]

OMFG! I cannot read these posts they are so large!!!! Anyway I only get viruses from warez but i haven't been downloading much recently so i haven't had any major infection.

Last virus I got was from a friend. I was testing it for him. It was a heck of a virus.