Asylum Feedback/Support

Posted by Bambi B (A) on May 25, 2010 at 06:37:48

In Reply to: RE: Virus message posted by mark111 on May 24, 2010 at 16:19:10

mark111,

Last Thursday, while visiting this site I had a virus alert that was eventually found to contain "Trojan horse Generic 17". this pernicious and vicious virus was able to turn off Windows Firewall and disabled all the *.exe files on my computer, including that for the AVG anti-virus, so I couldn;t use anything. The Internet connection did work and I think that was so it could go phishing.

This was very clever as it posed as "Anti-Spyware Soft" and of course in my panic when it asked "Do you want to stop this attack" I said yes and it started what I think was a phishing scan. I turned this off right away, but the trojan horse was deeply embedded.

My beloved ancient soundcard (Audiowerk 2, 1995) may have been ruined in all this as I may have shorted the outputs on the chassis when I reinstalled it- the little output transformers fried?

I thought the trojan horse was disabled/removed but apparently AVG could not remove it completely and it recurred. This all prompted me to take a new 750GB HD I'd bought as the recording files HD for my recording computer and loaded XP Professional and software. However, as the soundcard is not working and I lost the install key for my Wordperfect 12, I'm hobbling along on the previously infected HD, running scans twice a day and backing up to a portable HD.

Yesterday, I loaded and ran Super Anti Spyware that did find "Rogue Anti-Spyware Soft". I'll see if it actually cured. I'm limping along on the old hard drive until I get my new soundcard which is tomorrow- an M-Audio "Audiophile" 2496 -like the one I use in the recording computer. For a $100 soundcard, it's very, very good. I'm also receiving shortly Corel Office Suite X4, so I'll have my Wordperfect back. Then I'll reformat the infected 500GB and it can go into the recording computer. By the way, I am still unable to receive emails in the account that I use here, so anyone that's sent me anything- be patient!

This has been the worst virus disaster I've ever had- more than 3 days full time to recover. It's a reminder to pay serious attention to virus protection and to back up frequently!

As AVG did not block this attack means I'll be changing anti-virus software. Any recommendations for the best anti-virus, anti-mal and spyware programme gratefully received.


Cheers,

Bambi B