what is scareware and what is the worst thing that happened to your computer

Ericthegreat · Mar 20, 2013

McHaggis said:
When I worked as a technician, I used to see 4 or 5 cases of Scareware per day. The most common method of distribution is P2P file sharing, where they are disguised as a program or something else (e.g. best_porno_ever.mov.exe) you want. As far as harm goes, they usually leave files alone and do nothing to technically damage your operating system. That would kind of defeat the point of their business model. However, some can replace your Google results, open porn popups on your desktop or insert adverts into your favourite social networking site too.

I never use antivirus, I find that the major "security" programs are the biggest resource hogs you can get on a computer. The best defense is common sense in this case; don't download things that look suspect, check hashes, use BitTorrent and check the reputation of the torrent uploader, watch your porn online instead of downloading it and so on. If you want to use a virus scanner, that's fine, just choose one that doesn't constantly run in the background and use it to scan stuff that you just downloaded. Also, most malware is written for Windows, I've never seen scareware or most other forms of malware on Linux or Mac (although I'm sure they do exist).

And when you do watch porn try and stay on the major sites, if you look for anything obscure do it on a linux partition

Rydian · Mar 21, 2013

McHaggis said:
Sure, I agree and I said before, using a lightweight antivirus scanner can't do you any harm. But most of them won't remove deeply embedded malware, which is why applications like HijackThis (an aid to manual removal) are so popular.

Yeah, the guide uses hijackthis and malwarebytes, but they don't get most of the worst stuff either.

McHaggis said:
And, like I said, antivirus won't stop a browser exploit. A browser exploit tricks the computer into thinking the code is being run by the user, so it has access to do most things without being detected, like writing binary data to a file and executing it. All I'm saying is that people being careful are more likely to avoid malware than people who aren't being careful and have antivirus installed.

If the binary file is found to be malicious by the AV, it will NOT be written and executed even if the browser is hijacked and instructed to. Modern AVs hook into I/O and scan things before any usermode program can access them (which includes Explorer and the user shell to launch programs).

McHaggis said:
Yeah, no, I'll pass. I'm sure it's great, and that you're very experienced when it comes to dealing with and avoiding malware, but so am I and you're not going to change my opinion on something I'm quite sure of. Do you call the doctor for every tiny sniffle you get? I visited the doctor 4 times in 3 years with issues breathing and they still failed to diagnose me. I often look up my symptoms if I'm ill and don't visit the doctor if I see that I can deal with it myself. AV scanners miss things all the time, especially new things. When I worked as a technician, we had to run AV scans and all of them missed things that I could pick up on and clear off myself, all of them failed to remove certain forms of scareware that I had to manually remove.

Missed the point. The point is that claiming you have nothing while saying you have never actually been checked for that something (thus assuming that no positive means you're clean) is bad advice.

Forum members see smart people like you and try to emulate them, which is why I'm so damned hard-ass about this point.

McHaggis said:
I'd rather agree to disagree on this one and move on.

Too bad, not happening. As long as I can post on this forum, I will not allow you to word things in a way that will make lesser-experienced users think they don't need protection software.

McHaggis said:
From what I can tell after spending some time on these forums―and without wanting to seem condescending―, you're a decent enough chap and mature enough to have a differing opinion on something without having to force someone to agree with you.

Because most subjects are down to opinion and not serious.

This, however, is not down to opinion, and is serious. We're talking hundreds to thousands of dollars in computer equipment, people's personal information, and possibly their monetary/banking information as well. I will NOT allow users to risk these things.

See, this is the kind of shit I want to avoid, which is why I wrote the guide, which outlines all the shit I'm saying, with sources...

dsigamerxl · Mar 21, 2013

well i have a question is the autorun file on C:/windows cessagent or something like that in windows 7 on windows explorer click computer then search autorun if a file comes up please tell if not GO UBUNTU for me

McHaggis · Mar 21, 2013

Rydian said:
Lots of stuff

Right, the self appointed father of security for GBATemp.net community members can keep arguing until he's blue in the face, but I've seriously got better things to do with my time. Cheerio.

ars25 · Mar 21, 2013

The only scareware i got was a fake antivirus (i forgot the name) and it wouldn't let me do anything i couldn't browse the web open anything except internet explorer and even then i couldn't go anywhere it kept putting me on a random website with random adverts. the only way i got rid of it was deleting it. it stopped but my pc was slow as hell couldn't even play videos with out lagging so what i did was wipe my drive and upgraded from vista to win 7 ultimate.

TheCasketMan · Mar 21, 2013

They are also called ransomware

GeorgeFoulds · Mar 21, 2013

Just gonna ad my two pence to the antivirus discussion. NEVER stack antiviruses, they will interfere with each other and do nothing but provide unnecessary bloat/slow your PC down. I might switch to Linux completely soon though, so I shouldn't have to be too worried about viruses anymore.

dsigamerxl · Mar 22, 2013

GeorgeFoulds said:
Just gonna ad my two pence to the antivirus discussion. NEVER stack antiviruses, they will interfere with each other and do nothing but provide unnecessary bloat/slow your PC down. I might switch to Linux completely soon though, so I shouldn't have to be too worried about viruses anymore.

ya i know that since i was 9 or 10 cause i'm an expert at computers and gadgets and some of nsmb rom hacking

trance · Mar 22, 2013

McHaggis said:
watch your porn online instead of downloading it

Words to live by

dsigamerxl · Mar 23, 2013

trance said:
Words to live by

sir i do not watch porn and btw what is it

Pleng · Mar 25, 2013

dsigamerxl said:
sir i do not watch porn

you is missing out

and btw what is it

type the work into google, click 'images', enjoy

pyromaniac123 · Mar 25, 2013

dsigamerxl said:
sir i do not watch porn and btw what is it

Lies.

dsigamerxl · Mar 25, 2013

pyromaniac123 said:
Lies.

yes i dont why cause i am 11

Originality · Mar 25, 2013

dsigamerxl said:
yes i dont why cause i am 11

Considering that I know many 8-10 year olds are fully versed in bypassing parental locks to get at their porn, you being 11 has nothing to do with whether or not you look at porn yourself.

You know, the best thing for you to do is not respond to the trolls on the Internet. By defending yourself and trying to sound like a decent person (I.e. using excuses), you only make them want to tease you more. Something about guilt displacement psychology.

pyromaniac123 · Mar 25, 2013

dsigamerxl said:
yes i dont why cause i am 11

You say you don't watch porn but then you ask what it is?

:rolleyes:

ShadowSoldier · Mar 25, 2013

raulpica said:
I've seen some of the nastiest scareware ever this summer. It was a scam where you couldn't log in Windows as a window would pop up saying that it was the Police and you surfed for illegal Porn (nasty stuff) and/or downloaded illegally something. It'd then proceed to completely lock down your PC, asking you to pay a €100 fine to unlock it via a rechargeable credit card.

Well, a lot of people paid it, it seems. Mainly to hide their nasty habits to their families. :|

My friend was actually caught by that earlier this year. He was scared crapless because he was just browsing porn one day, and it happened to him. He had no idea what the fuck was happening. He called me and I just googled it and found out it was scareware. I didn't know how to deal with it so I told him to just do a system restore, and it's been fine since.

It was actually funny, because when he explained to me about it, and the FBI logo and shit, I said "wait... they can't lock your computer and crash it or shit. That doesn't sound right at all."

dsigamerxl · Apr 2, 2013

the worst thing that happened to my computer is i got a bsod (blue screen of death) on my old vista laptop it scared the crap out of me i was so scared and shocked i jumped of my chair to the sofa

what is scareware and what is the worst thing that happened to your computer

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