Hello everyone, In our office, we are having around 25 computers which are connected by LAN. Recently we are facing virus attack problem in 2 computers, inspite of having a good antivirus software running in all of the computers. We spoke to our hardware vendor regarding the problem. They have scanned many times those two PCs, but nothing happened. We are unable to work on these two PCs as the virus threats are continuosly coming up while working. The two PCs which are attacked by the virus, are directly connected to two different internet connections (by modem) provided by two different ISPs. Now our hardaware vendors are telling that formatting the PC won't solve the problem, as the two computers are directly connected to modem and these two are the mail computers which are connected to internet. So they are suggesting to set up one router between the computer and the ISP connection. Can anyone tell us whether setting up the router will solve the problem, or we should opt for any other solution? Thank you all in advance.
1. Install an antivirus program on each of your computers. These are programs developed to identify and neutralize or get rid of viruses from your computer. They analyze your computer system and disinfects it of any existing viruses. Antivirus programs also prevent malicious code from copying itself to your hard disk and accessing data on the computer. Many antivirus program are available in the market, both free and commercial. These brands include Kaspersky, AntiVir and Macafee (see Resources below). 2. Secure your Internet connection using a firewall. A firewall is software or a hardware device developed to prevent unauthorized access to your computer by viruses and from hackers. Without an active firewall, your computer will be vulnerable to getting infected by a malicious program, often within minutes of connecting to the Internet. See Resources below for how to choose a firewall. 3. Isolate any infected computers or drives and disconnect them from the Internet until you have run an antiviral program. Workstations on networks that are infected with viruses should be isolated and disinfected before being restored into the network. 4. Update your antivirus programs on a regular basis. If possible, set up the program to automatically alert you when updates are available from the manufacturer. This will help ensure that it can detect and get rid of new known viruses, which are always being developed. Make a practice of running the antivirus program on a regular basis. Stay up-to-date on security updates and vulnerability patches for computer software you have installed on your PC. 5. Scan any email attachments or any files downloaded from the Internet before you open them, to ensure that there is no malicious program in the download. Never download email attachments that are not from trusted sources, especially if it has the .exe extension. Scan any flash disks, floppies or other storage media before use--particularly if they are from unknown sources. These media are notorious for spreading viruses to other machines that are not infected.
Hi, Formatting the computer would probably take care of this instance of getting viruses/malware but they would still be susceptible to future attacks. Even with antivirus software on the computer, like Sofia said you need to have a good firewall and also some sort of malware scanning software. A router can act as a hardware type firewall as the computers behind it are protected to an extent, because the router would have the live IP address on the internet that the rest of the internet sees, whereas the computers behind it would have a local IP given to them. Where they are mail computers, you may have to setup some kind of port forwarding to get them to work, but not sure depending on how your system is setup. But in short, yes, a router could help stop some kinds of attacks. Also, I would use a program like malwarebytes or spybot search and destroy to scan for malware on the computers, in addition to your current antivirus software.
I lost all of the important things on my computer, and learned a lesson for once. Never download a bad torrent. But how do you know if it is a bad torrent? Now you can check my post about finding the best torrent although the points below are important: Only download torrents which are at least 1-2 days old. Read their comments and take them seriously. Make sure you have a good anti-virus If you feel fishy about the whole thing , then ask an expert before proceeding on the whole thing. Viruses are usually in the disguise in torrents of softwares.
Hi, If you have tried a virus scan and it couldnt clean it, try running a malware scan. I use either spybot search and destroy or malwarebytes for this. Alot of the fake antivirus popups/infections are malware based and those programs usually pick them up where antivirus does not. Also, alot of those fake av problems, like windows xp antivirus 2011 usually just infect one profile on the computer. You may have to run it from that profile in order for it to find it (This may mean you have to run it from the command window where I have seen those malware stop you from running the software from clicking on it with the mouse). Also, you can rename that profile then have the user sign in again to create a new profile, then just move any documents and favorites to the new one. This will resolve the problem for many of the fake antivirus problems as it only infects one profile and all others on the computer are fine. What exactly is happening on these computers that makes you think they are infected? If it is one of the fake antivirus popups, if you go into the task manager, see if you can find an unrecognized .exe running. If you kill the process, it should go away(closing the pop up), but usually comes back. However, once you know what .exe it is, you can do a search on the hard drive for it. What I have usually found is the program is 3 random letters, like cje.exe or something, but its usually 3 random letters. 90 percent of the time, I then go to documents and settings, users profile name, local settings, application settings folder and thats where the .exe is. I delete it and then scan the registry for that .exe and remove it from there as well.
These f****** annoying fake antiviruses are all over the web. I've fixed 3 PC's hit with this virus this past week which corrupted their boot files. Even i was hit with it. An antivirus will not protect you from these attacks. A firewall might. If you're hit from this and are able to boot up into Windows, download ComboFix. It removed the virus for me. Pretty slick and tiny app...
cube, do you think this virus attacked via website through addons or such? i'm using firefox with adblock plus addon! not taking any chances
Hm, cool add on. Just added it myself. I didn't know such a thing existed. This blog explains exactly how it penetrates your system.
You need to purchase a new antivirus to protect your systems from threats and viruses, formatting again and again is not a permanent solution.
Anti Viruses only get you so far. You have to remember they can only detect what has been found. The percent of viruses found vs how many exists are quit larger. I would recommend on taking preventative measures to make sure it doest get to the point you need an AV. Yes they are right. Formating the computers will remove the virus for now but without being able to identify the virus and finding out how It got there you can not rule out the chance of reinfection.
reformat the operating system after backup of your data and install the anti virus with a upgraded patches
