My PC was fighting a cold
Got back from vacation the night of May 3rd. I’ve been kind of quiet on here because shortly after I got back my PC started acting funny (due to a Trojan) and it’s taken this long to rectify the problem.
I don’t recall what happened right before, maybe I slipped and clicked a banner ad, not sure… but I had a flash and then a window pops up saying I have a virus. It was a really convincing looking Microsoft-style window and it asked me to click the window to “Activate” my protection - clicking any of those things is the trigger to install the full-on virus and then you’re dead. Luckily I didn’t fall for it because I had McAfee installed, so if I was going to get a warning, it should have been from them.
I used my McAfee to run a full scan and although it said it found and killed it, it kept coming back. According to the forums, McAfee apparently can’t kill it.
My employer offers us licenses for a different product (they’d prefer us to be protected when working on company stuff from home) so I went that route … and that’s where the delay was. It took a week from asking about it to getting the actual license.
I went through it all over the last two nights and eventually it killed almost everything. There was a remnant of the virus, and I got rid of it by finding the .exe file and blowing it away.
So that is all better now, but one nagging thing is that it’s not easy for anyone out there to get reliable support. There’s too many search results that take to sites that offer you tools to clean your PC, tools that are in reality more viruses, and it’s difficult for the casual user to know what is safe. You’d think Microsoft would get off their butts and host a site like HijackThis so people know there is a safe place to get their PC fixed.
So with the PC running I can get back to posting again. Expect a flurry of activity!
I don’t recall what happened right before, maybe I slipped and clicked a banner ad, not sure… but I had a flash and then a window pops up saying I have a virus. It was a really convincing looking Microsoft-style window and it asked me to click the window to “Activate” my protection - clicking any of those things is the trigger to install the full-on virus and then you’re dead. Luckily I didn’t fall for it because I had McAfee installed, so if I was going to get a warning, it should have been from them.
I used my McAfee to run a full scan and although it said it found and killed it, it kept coming back. According to the forums, McAfee apparently can’t kill it.
My employer offers us licenses for a different product (they’d prefer us to be protected when working on company stuff from home) so I went that route … and that’s where the delay was. It took a week from asking about it to getting the actual license.
I went through it all over the last two nights and eventually it killed almost everything. There was a remnant of the virus, and I got rid of it by finding the .exe file and blowing it away.
So that is all better now, but one nagging thing is that it’s not easy for anyone out there to get reliable support. There’s too many search results that take to sites that offer you tools to clean your PC, tools that are in reality more viruses, and it’s difficult for the casual user to know what is safe. You’d think Microsoft would get off their butts and host a site like HijackThis so people know there is a safe place to get their PC fixed.
So with the PC running I can get back to posting again. Expect a flurry of activity!