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Posted: 3/6/2006 5:26:36 PM EDT
Just wondering, In all my years of dealing with computers, I've never had an infection, and have only seen two, the same person had both and was "asking for it" He purchased two used computers that had come from schools...
 I'm kinda thinking that viruses for the average user is about like the Y2K panic. Spyware and popups on the other hand are a real pain. |
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Posted: 3/6/2006 8:56:05 PM EDT
[#1]
I did on my last lap top . Nothing to maliciouse just anoying as fuck . Every time ya logged on or off it showed a picture of a donkeys butt and said "Your a jackass"
I thought it was funny for awhile , but it got annoying so I went to do the reg edit to kill it and fubared my paltop up good . |
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Posted: 3/6/2006 9:01:13 PM EDT
[#2]
I've had several that were recevied but never deployed - since I don't use MS email programs and have my email programs set to avoid problems. AVG catches them and I delete them before they do any damage.
Years ago when I first got online I may have had a boot sector virus, but I couldn't be sure, since I just got a new Hard drive and started over instead of investigating it. |
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Posted: 3/6/2006 9:06:21 PM EDT
[#3]
i've gotten some minor malware and stuff, but no major viruses.
prudence will protect you from 90% of viruses. don't open or send chain emails, don't download files that you are not 100% sure of, and dont use internet explorer. use firefox |
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Posted: 3/6/2006 9:07:54 PM EDT
[#4]
My office desktop got infected by several a fews years ago. Norton fixed it right up though but I spent the better part of a day doing it.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 12:13:39 AM EDT
[#5]
had a few infections, but they never got to doing whatever they did.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 12:29:02 AM EDT
[#6]
I have had two, the first totally fubared my PC, I think I got it from a email. The second was last year and I don't know where it came from. My wife was surfing the net while I was at work and "IT JUST CRASHED" to paraphase her. After fixing that debacle, I now run Norton 24/7.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 12:52:02 AM EDT
[#7]
Not since I took possesion of my XP based PC and installed avast!
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Posted: 3/7/2006 1:17:54 AM EDT
[#8]
Norton has detected numerous viruses on my puter, but it never got beyond that.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 1:22:26 AM EDT
[#9]
Quoted:
I have had two, the first totally fubared my PC, I think I got it from a email. The second was last year and I don't know where it came from. My wife was surfing the net while I was at work and "IT JUST CRASHED" to paraphase her. After fixing that debacle, I now run Norton 24/7.[/quote] was there ever a time that you just ran it sometimes?? 
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Posted: 3/7/2006 2:06:41 AM EDT
[#10]
Like a DUMBASS I didn't learn my lesson the first time,  I just used whatever came with the computer. I will never make thet mistake again.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 4:10:17 AM EDT
[#11]
The only real one any of my computers have had was one I wrote myself as a research project back in the DOS days. It was a *real* virus, not a "click on the attachment" trojan horse kind of thing. Anyway, it got loose outside of my test system and made it to several friends machines as well as work before I knew it got loose. A looong night writing a vaccine resulted in it being eradicated from all infected machines. It was a fascinating project. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 4:37:44 AM EDT
[#12]
I've had a virus try to infest my system twice, but Norton stopped it. I had been redirected to a questionable site. Mtdownload or some such.
HOWEVER, I do work on systems for people as a hobby/side work, and I've seen a few here and there. What's most common is tons of malware/spyware/trojans. I'd say that 90+% of systems I've looked at were seriously infested with crap. Better than 50% of those required a complete disk wipe and O/S reinstall, so it's no small problem. Some of the malware/trojans out there are far worse than the viruses I've seen, and I've seen some nasty ones. The people who write these things ought to be taken out and beaten to death with computer keyboards. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 4:42:39 AM EDT
[#13]
It is rare - but it has happened. I had to rebuild the OS about 6 months ago... mine got hit so bad.... nothing would clean it up. My AV program detects stuff all the time, if you go to a hostile website.
Spyware all the time.... I clean that up with Adaware. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 4:59:53 AM EDT
[#14]
Every year when students come in from summer break, the local university's network is flooded with viruses. Apparently a summer of downloading suspicious attatchments and viewing monkey porn websites takes its toll on the machines. Fully 40% of student machines are instantly quarrantined upon plugging into the network because they are infected with some sort of virus. For instance: A few years ago there was a bad outbreak of a virus to the point that we were manning computer labs and scanning EVERY disk that went into and out of the labs. I scanned the ZIP disk of a girl, and all 143 files on her ZIP disk were infected with some type of virus. Viruses ARE a real threat, ESPECIALLY if you are on some sort of LAN with users who engage in risky behavior. Any more, you don't have to do anything to get infected with a virus. Some holes in Windoze are big enough that you can be infected without doing anything whatsoever. One of our servers was infected that way. There was a security hole in Windows 2000 server that made it vulnerable to an exploit if the server had ANY shares on it. The minute the server actually had a share created on it the Esbot exploit hit the machine. Viruses are a very REAL problem, but you aren't likely to be infected if you use common sense and patch your software. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:07:16 AM EDT
[#15]
I had the Cool-Web virus, it was such a pain. Even though I deleled the .EXE file etc with a virus removal tool, the virus would reinstall itself when I rebooted the machine. I ended up having to install software product called TeaTimer to monitor the computer's registery, and deny access to the registery when it wanted to reinstall itself.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:08:35 AM EDT
[#16]
i see virus's, trojans, malware everyday
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:10:41 AM EDT
[#17]
Yep, me too-don't users suck? Nick |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:11:59 AM EDT
[#18]
Only once. I was the System Admin at an office of a consulting firm I'll refer to as the Borg.
One of the project managers handed me a floppy disk that he thought might be infected. I put it in the drive on my desktop machine. Norton AV freaked out and made all kinds of noise. At that moment the power to the building went dead. I ran downstairs to tend to some servers that had to be shut down manually to avoid data loss. (Our UPSs were inadequate.) The power came back on while I was fiddling with a database server. My workstation upstairs booted off the floppy I had left in the drive. It took me 90 seconds to get rid of the boot sector virus that got on my workstation. Back then it was easy - Boot on a DOS 6.22 floppy and run the following commands: fdisk /MBR sys C: Done. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:16:01 AM EDT
[#19]
I had a fit with the NYB virus on an OS/2 desktop in the mid-90s.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:19:44 AM EDT
[#20]
Mac user here.
None. Ever. 
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:25:34 AM EDT
[#21]
My boss's kids have a virus that seems undetectable by current antivirus and antispyware programs. The only noticeable effect is that it turns off Norton after the computer runs for a couple minutes. Of course that leads to a whole bunch of additional infections that I get rid of but that first one is a sneaky bugger.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:26:53 AM EDT
[#22]
You will. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:27:10 AM EDT
[#23]
that pretty much sums it up. 
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:37:26 AM EDT
[#24]
I had a BAD one a few years ago...maybe you heard of it.
It was called "Windows Millennium Edition" or Windows ME and it gave you the "blue screen of death" at least twice a day causing you to have to cold boot the entire system... |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:39:41 AM EDT
[#25]
I deal with virii on a daily basis.... stupid end users.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 5:52:33 AM EDT
[#26]
On my old computer I got an Anti-CMOS virus. I didn't know it was there until too late.
I just started losing applications and accessories until the damn thing got way down deep into the bios, by then it was too late. Not even the virus scan could get it. I had to trash that machine. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:10:43 AM EDT
[#27]
Working on one right now for a fellow hospital worker.
After running Spybot and Ad-Aware to get rid of the piddly stuff, I ran a Panda ActiveScan, and came back with 37 f'in viruses.  She doesn't have enough memory on her system to do what I need to do. But once the new memory arrives from NewEgg today, that computer's in for the ass kickin' of its life!  And I'm looking forward to it.  My own system, no, I've never been hit. Between Spybot, Ad-Aware, Black Ice Defender, Panda A/V, and not downloading or opening questionable crap, I've managed to avoid being hit. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:24:47 AM EDT
[#28]
Twice, once in the mid 90's. I was in Mexico at the the time and out school computers were IBM 8088
All they had was 2 disk 700k 3.5 disk drives. People would use wachother DOS disks and someone got a virus, it would spread to everyone else pretty quick. A few of us knew what we were doing but I got one and it got to my home computer, had to reformat the hard drive. The second time was a couple months ago. I was talking to a friend on AIM, she just got a new computer and was trying to figure out how to put pictures on the internet. A couple hours after our conversation I got an IM from her and it said check out this pic of us, with a link and before my flags went up in my head I clicked it. I knew what it was right away.was able to stop it from doing any harm
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:25:26 AM EDT
[#29]
Nope, I use a Mac.
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:26:32 AM EDT
[#30]
I could be wrong but the bios is hardware, how would a virus effect it?? |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:35:59 AM EDT
[#31]
The BIOS is firmware. You can write to it if you know what you're doing. A lot of BIOS manufacturers release updates for their BIOS's that you can download and install. As for the original question: I've got virus'ed once by accident, once on puprose (I wanted to play with it), and I've seen several hundred infected machines at school (I've been working in school computer labs for a little over 4 years now). |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:43:23 AM EDT
[#32]
Never had anything serious... I've always run antivirus software.
Though a couple years ago, I threw 2000 Server on my old old box, and was setting it up to run my web server... within half an hour of being online, it had contracted a worm. (hooked up to cable modem). NAV killed it once I finally got it installed. Nowadays, installing antivirus software is one of the first things I do on a new OS. Also, if MS pulls it off (when have they ever the first time?), Windows Vista will be very much more difficult for Malware to install itself on. I'm running the beta (February CTP) version, and the stupid thing asks you if it can run everything. I mean, you open the control panel, and it asks you if you want it to run. You open the network properties, and it asks you if you want it to run... it's a bit anal, but it should be able to protect many users from themselves. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 8:45:02 AM EDT
[#33]
Careful... there are security holes in Mac OS. 'Mac snobbery' (not pointing finger at YOU specifically, so don't take offense) isn't going to protect Mac users for much longer. |
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Posted: 3/7/2006 9:13:10 AM EDT
[#34]
You're right of course. I've run virus protection on my last couple of machines, just never found anything is all. Thankfully! And I know it's only a matter of time before we Mac guys get whacked. |
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