Lifecruiser

June 26th, 2006

Monday Memories Virusfree

Posted by Lifecruiser in Odditys, Useful

Did I ever tell you about my VIRUS FREE YEARS?

I’ve been using computers and Internet since the beginning of Internet and have some very fond memories from the virusfree years I’ve had. So many years and so much fun surfing.

Now that’s just a memory. It’s getting more and more complicated to protect your computer. It’s not only viruses, but malwares, spywares and all sort of things.

The other day I accidently clicked on a link in a spam comment on this blog and it opened my browser - which I closed at once - and *swosh* my computer got infected for the very first time, by a Trojan called Trojan.Zlob. Appearently it’s very difficult to get rid of. And very many seems to be infected with it. *heavy sigh*

It is a backdoor designed to give the attacker remote control over a compromised PC. It changes essential computer settings and modifies certain files. Zlob starts automatically on every Windows startup and stays hidden in background. It waits for remote connections and allows the attacker to download and install additional software, execute certain commands and manage the entire computer. Zlob can be very dangerous.

And yes, I have an antivirus software installed, Norton Antivirus, but obviously it didn’t manage to stop this one, even though Symantec claim that it does.

What is worse is that I had to do an online virus scan to find out what it was infected of, because Norton Antivirus Scan don’t detect the trojan at all. It wouldn’t let me do a scan with AdAware (my Spyware software) either and my browsers (both IE and Firefox) were shutdown with an error message so I couldn’t perform the online scan either at first.

I found (by running RegKleaner) that it keeps installing something called Spyware Soft and put it in the Autostart too. I managed to get rid of that, probably temporarily.

I’ve been reading about this Trojan on the internet and it seems like it’s a lot of steps needed to go through to get rid of it, with a lot of fuss and while I was writing this, I was running another spywarecheck on the computer, when it just stopped. Blue screen syndrom. Reboot problems, because it tries to boot from CD-ROM suddenly.

I know how to fix so it reboot properly from the hard drive, but I don’t want to, because the virus will still be there. I’ve been trying all day to fix this horrible beast.

I don’t have the time or energy to format my hard drive and try to do a completely fresh install of Windows, for the moment.

I’m using Mr Lifecruisers work computer right now, so I guess I’ll have to lean on that for a while until I can fix mine.

My computer is just a memory for the moment. *sigh*

I think I’ll just go to bed… (it’s 02:00 am)

Monday Memories code
Shelli’s blog
Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged!
Visit other participants

Cruise list: Mandy, Walker, Martin, Happy and Blue 2, Kelly, PixiePincessMom, Chi, Mar, Debbie, Mrhaney, and Napfisk.

11 Responses to ' Monday Memories Virusfree '

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to ' Monday Memories Virusfree '.

  1. Napfisk said:

    Whoa, sounds awful. Wish I had some easy tips, but I have no idea.

    I used to have a lot of problems last year, but ever since I installed F-Secure, everything works just fine.

    I did almost have my comp fried today because of lightning strike. No firewall protection there.

    Hope you get things sorted out real soon. Did I miss any posts here? Coz we all really want to hear all the Ireland stories and see the pics, right?

    Lifecruiser: Oops, lightning wouldn’t have been good either. Well, I think I have to format the disks and do the fresh Win install, it sounds like the” easiest” thing to do. Luckily enough I did backup before it went real bad. I just hope that I didn’t catch anything of it in the backups…

    And no, you didn’t miss any posts and you’re just teasing with me :-) - of course I shall write about the Ireland trip, but had to make the virus priority #1. Arrrgh.

    June 26th, 2006 at 3:35 am

  2. mrhaney said:

    well that really stinks. i feel bad for you but i am not good at removing viruses myself. i have had a few through the years. good luck trying to get rid of the bugger.

    Lifecruiser: Yes, it does. So much extra unnecessary work because nasty people come up with nasty things. *sigh* Thanks for the good luck wish.

    June 26th, 2006 at 4:42 am

  3. Debbie said:

    I try to be very careful but the truly evil people on the internet are smarter than I. They are not nice at all and do this to bring us down. I sure hope you get it taken care of. We were hit with a nasty one last year that I was almost ready to just blast the harddrive but we finally got rid of it.

    Sure hope you get it fixed soon. Loved you MM reference it was great!
    My MM is up! No virus please!!

    Lifecruiser: Yes, they truly are. I’ve decided to blast the harddrive, it’s faster than trying to remove this one and I need a clean up of the comp. anyway :-)

    June 26th, 2006 at 1:52 pm

  4. mar said:

    How nasty… so sorry for you… I am a good pc user but cannot fix a thing… On the other hand I watched the D-Sweden game in Germany, but on tv. A radio station covered one IKEA shop with huge German flags that day, only heard about it, wish I could have seen it myself for good pics!

    Lifecruiser: Well, we’ll see if I manage to fix this or if I have to ask for help. I’ll give it a try anyway. Don’t even mention that game to me ;-)

    June 26th, 2006 at 4:58 pm

  5. Chi said:

    How awful!! I am really sorry to hear that you are having such a hard time getting rid of the virus…I wish you the best of luck!

    Nothing new at my place today…too lazy to post anything. *s*

    Lifecruiser: Yeah, it was a real bad one. I’ve just finished formatting my harddrives and made a new install of windows. Done several virus scans, no virus, so I think I can breathe now again… I’ll visit you as soon as I can :-)

    June 26th, 2006 at 5:22 pm

  6. PixiePincessMom said:

    That just stinks! :mad: I hope you’re able to get yoru computer up & running normal soon. I despise the Trojan virus & have had to totally wipe out my computer a few times because of it.

    Lifecruiser: Yes, to that I can only agree, because I’ve just done it myself. Phew.

    June 26th, 2006 at 5:23 pm

  7. Kelly said:

    I have gotten a virus on my computer before. I didn’t know what to do so I asked the IT people that I work with and they helped me out. Luckly I have a laptop and I could just carry in to them. Sorry to hear about you getting the virus, it’s a pain when it happens to you and it’s a pain to get rid of. Good luck with getting rid of the virus and fixing your computer.

    Lifecruiser: Thanks Kelly. I think it helped some with the good luck, even though I did choose to wipe it out totally.

    June 26th, 2006 at 8:39 pm

  8. Happy and Blue 2 said:

    :sad: Hope you get rid of it soon. Computer virus’s suck..

    Lifecruiser: YEAH, THEY DO!!!!!

    June 27th, 2006 at 12:20 am

  9. martin said:

    The little buggers! cut their nuts off and make casternets out of them! Happend to me last year and I lost so much info, I really feel for you!

    Keep smiling!!

    Bye for now folks, I’m off to bed!

    Lifecruiser: Luckily enough, I have all important stuff backed up, but it’s annoying with all the extra work I had to put into it. I fixed it, so now I’m smiling again :-)

    June 27th, 2006 at 12:35 am

  10. walker said:

    I remember when I didnt know what a virus was and now I pay a service to make sure I dont have to worry about it.
    I remember one the ruined my motherboard.
    I have learned tricks like doing a restore to a time tham I didnt have the virus to delete it.

    Lifecruiser: I’ve been lucky, never had one before. I wish I could have done a restore, but my win installation was not quite healthy anyway before the virus, so it didn’t work. Among with some other things to. So I guess it was about time for me to do a fresh install anyway, I just got a extra kick in my butt to do it now :-)

    June 27th, 2006 at 8:18 am

  11. Mandy said:

    Sorry to hear about your virus, that sucks big time. Now since we’ve installed AVAST on all of our computers, virus’s haven’t been able to get past. My mom paid for a virus scanner a while back, she still does.. and it took me many weeks to convince her to try AVAST.. Finally, after yet another virus.. she has :)

    Lifecruiser: Yes, I’ve changed to avast now too. The only thing is that the avast 4 home edition don’t work if you’re running your comp. as a server - at least that’s what they say on their website. I was running a webserver on mine before, but I’ve decided to drop it now.

    June 27th, 2006 at 10:45 am

Leave a reply

:mrgreen: :neutral: :twisted: :shock: :smile: :???: :cool: :evil: :grin: :oops: :razz: :roll: :wink: :cry: :eek: :lol: :mad: :sad: