hi guys tell me what is scareware and you can post about what is the worst thing that happened to your computer
what is scareware and what is the worst thing that happened to your computer
- Thread starter dsigamerxl
- Start date
- Views 3,899
- Replies 36
Scareware is malicious software that's used to trick you into paying for something to remove it from your pc.
Just scan reguarly with malwarebytes and a virus scanner and you'll be fine ;]
Just scan reguarly with malwarebytes and a virus scanner and you'll be fine ;]
Also intall Malwarebytes.
And or Super Anti spyware.
Those two will scan for malware and other rubbish.
And or Super Anti spyware.
Those two will scan for malware and other rubbish.
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).
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).
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. :|
Well, a lot of people paid it, it seems. Mainly to hide their nasty habits to their families. :|
I also experienced that.
Took me under an hour to completely delete it.
Annoying virus but I can understand a lot of computer noobs/parents/old people falling for it and paying for it to go away.
Poor poor basterds );
Please save me a ton of trouble and don't suggest that. I'll be the first to note that most infections nowadays are not viruses, but that doesn't mean virus scanners are useless, and the average person should not go around without one.
"Being careful" doesn't do shit when your browser+OS can be hijacked from viewing any webpage that displays advertisements. No visiting of shady sites needed, no download, etc. View an affects site, and if your browser+OS is the one targeted, bam.
The sticky has a lot more info on proper ways to avoid infections (most of them extremely simple).
Saw a variant of that.
Was just an executable set to run on boot, didn't make any other changes so removing it from the startup list and deleting the executable nixed it.
Oh, it wasn't that easy, here. We got lots of variants. It mainly hooked on the ctfmon.exe process (which is SYSTEM) to load out another file. Also, most of 'em blocked the Safe Mode so you couldn't remove it.
Finding the file wasn't easy either, since the file was created with a random name in a random dir in the Win directories. Only way to find it was to load the registry hives remotely from a livecd, search the Run stuff and find the ctfmon key which loaded the file. Only then you could remove it.
I also remember another variant which had some files hidden in the Caches dir which would regenerate the registry values AND the hook file.
Clever stuff.
WHY DINT I THINK OF THAT i cud have made big bucks
i got some thing a long time ago and it just made a lot of copy of this file (forgot the file name) till the hdd was full
Oh man, outside of user account password resets, the last time I had to edit the registry from the outside was when somebody decided that taking somebody else's copy of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and using it to replace theirs would give them a better video card so they could play some game.
This was back in the glory days though, when a GeForce 7600 was BALLS2THEWALL and lots of people still had SiS/Diamond/whatever integrated graphics and were trying anything they could find to run games better without plopping down for a new machine, since the "SLIM COMPUTAH" trend had just taken off for home users so nobody could actually fit a card, let alone had a motherboard+PSU for it.
Re-read my post. I didn't say they were useless; I said using a virus scanner is fine, but I don't recommend leaving them left on in the background, they were one of the biggest causes of machines running slow and long start-up waits. Some of the smaller footprint ones are OK, in fairness, it's the major security suites that are usually the problem. Over half of the computers coming in with adware/scareware were running either McAfee or Norton Internet Security suites with the latest heuristics that would detect the malware but be unable to remove it. Removing it manually would usually be the way to go (reboot in safe mode and manually remove all traces). Aside from that, a lot of malware/adware comes in the form of BHOs and other extensions that anti-virus won't remove because they're technically legitimate.
Don't get me wrong, in all the cases where AV wasn't on the machine, I sold it as a precautionary measure because those were the types of people that needed it (oh, and it helped boost my sales
).Except the link you posted involved "malvertising", which isn't a client hijack, it's a server hijack and it does ask the user to download and install scareware,which is, again, where common sense comes into play and tells you "DON'T BE A FOOL, YOU IDIOT!". Anti-virus might not help much here either, since the malware can be changed often to keep vendors on their toes.
For what it's worth, I've been using Windows without AV for over 10 years and never once gotten any virus or spyware. "Be careful" is the best advice you can give when it comes to avoiding malware, it will prevent infection MUCH more than AV software, unlike the "ton of trouble" I used to get with "y is my pc so slow is it bcos i haz a virus, but how come i haz a virus when i haz 30 different scanners installed?".
yeah i got that it said that i had porn and child porn on my pc, when i don't watch or download porn on my pc, and i had to pay the FBI $150 to "unlock" my pc,
Malwarebytes took care of that.
well i got a copy of ubuntu so if i cant kill the virus i'll kill windows myself and BANG ta da new OS with no and cant be virused and or just re-install windows which is better of the two
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2008
- Messages
- 5,716
- Trophies
- 1
- Age
- 35
- Location
- London, UK
- Website
- metalix.deviantart.com
- XP
- 1,904
- Country
Worst thing that happened to my computer (or at least, my first one)? I got hit by an early iteration of a logic bomb that ultimately destroyed my two hard drives and somehow screwed up BIOS. BIOS I managed to flash back and get it working, but those drives never worked again.
Back before browsers were common targets, scanning stuff before you run it was all that was really needed, but what with program exploits being the name of the game, having something that scans automatically can nip a lot of trouble in the bud.
You'll find almost nobody in the tech world suggesting Norton and the like because, yes, they are way heavier than required. Most of the AVs you'll see suggested are relatively light ones like MSE or Avast that scan files against sigs and do a heuristics scan, then whitelist it and allow the I/O.
I find most things users install themselves to be annoyances at best, but I guess to the end user something that keeps changing their home page from yahoo is hell as far as computer use goes.
S'why I made this, since there's been a big "Toss adware in my freeware program!" craze lately.
That example was just to show that "being careful" about the sites you visit doesn't help when advertisers can put things on almost any legit site that displays ads. The ads can and do contain browser exploits when possible.
"I haven't been to the doctor in 10 years and a doctor never told me I was sick".
Yeah, no. Read the sticky.
Just, seriously read the sticky and educate yourself so I don't have to derail ANOTHER thread with information that's already there.
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. I poorly phrased my first post, which more or less advised the OP that he didn't need antivirus at all, which isn't the case for some people. What I meant was that your own common sense (checking hashes, not downloading from P2P programs that all the crazy kids are using nowadays, etc) will save you much more often than any antivirus will, and that is the point I've been arguing since.
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.
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.
I'd rather agree to disagree on this one and move on. 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. I honestly think that common sense will save you a lot more than antivirus will, and yes, I'm speaking from years of experience in the field. You're happy with antivirus, and that's fine, I'm sure you have years of experience too. I even concede that some people will be safer using it. Keep your antivirus running, and I'll stick to using my head (when I'm on Windows, at least, compiling stuff yourself beats all!) and I'm sure we'll both be fine.
Anyway, I told a lie. I once downloaded a file from a college buddy over ICQ and he'd attached a trojan with it, and messed around with my dad's PC (which had AV, fwiw). That was 12 years ago, and I trusted him enough to run the file he sent me. In all fairness, I don't count it because all he did was write some stupid messages on my screen as a joke and then removed the program himself.
Similar threads
- Question
-
-
-
@
CameronCataclysm:
Why no blog posts about Nitendont going after Garry's Mod repos that have been up for a decade or 2? -
-
-
@
Xdqwerty:
Is it safe to update a modded ps3?
Can I play online in pirated games? (with ps3hen either enabled or not) -
-
-
-
-
-
@
Xdqwerty:
@salazarcosplay, I used apollo save tool to activate my ps3 offline so i could play a game that wasnt working
-
S @ salazarcosplay:from what I understood. you load up the piratged game. you the clear the syscalls, then you play
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
