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got a virus? 
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AntiVirus Information
PC Technician - AntiVirus Info
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As I said elsewhere on my pc technician site, getting rid of viruses was relatively easy
but this was back in the early days of PC's. Mostly, the hackers would put their payload
in the windows or windows\system32 directories. What I used to do was sort the contents of
these directories by date (earliest to latest) and by the file extension (.exe and .bat and
.dll). If I found a late date entry with a goofy name (like ty65rts.exe or iopkj789.dll) I would
just delete these and the virus would be gone. Pretty simple. But now the hackers hide files in other
directories and make the execution invisible (rootkits). I am somewhat of a fan of AVG antivirus
software probably because I don't go to web sites with domain extensions like .ru and .de etc..
I always tried to stay away from web sites that looked suspicious. And sorry to say porn sites
are notorious gateways into your computer. I think Google tries to warn you of unsafe sites but
many sites could sneak by their algorithms. The hackers work pretty hard at gathering info about
their potential victims and for the thieves out there they will work even harder (ransomware).
My advice is to be diligent about visiting websites.
Also, I would like to add a comment about visiting secured sites i.e., sites whose URL's begin with https. There is an impression going around that sites that begin with https are absolutely secure. This means that the website owner is using an SSL certificate. But, let me reassure you that this doesn't mean you have absolute security. It is true for sites with SSL, i.e., where the URL begins with https will protect you from people stealing sensitive data, e.g. Social Security numbers, account numbers, etc.. This is because the data packets are encrypted. But, any Bozo can apply for an SSL certificate and send to you a webpage with graphics in it and these graphic files, for example, files that end with the extension, gif, jpg, png etc.. So when the requested webpage opens and displays the graphic files, these files may contain bogus and intrusive and invasive code to gain access to your computer. This is where SSL fails, unless you requested a webpage to not show graphics. But this defeats, the whole idea of viewing a snazzy and colorful webpage. So therefore you should not think that you are 100% risk free. If your website is not conducting transactions with sensitive data than buying an SSL certificate is a complete waste of money, even though Google thinks this is an important feature. I personally tried to install SSL on my website but I had a lot of problems and because it is also very expensive I opted out from doing this. As a result of this I may lose the potential of gaining a higher page rank.
In the next several weeks I will try to give a more comprehensive overview of antivirus tactics. As an aside look over the following comments - unknown contributor |
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| AntiVirus info |
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