Disappopinted - AVG let me down

[Platypus]

I'm not sure how it happened, but my PC got a virus this morning. Pop-ups started appearing... humm suspicious. Windows firewall suddenly becomes disabled. Quick look in Task Manager and "oh no" some stuff there that really shouldn't be. Quick look in the registry and some new unwanted start-up items appeared. Then some "unhandled exception" errors appear. Looks like a caught a bad dose of "Windows System Defender".

Belatedly a few pop-ups from AVG start telling me I have a virus. I can almost see it infecting my machine in real-time as more and more new exe's appear in the Windows directory, processes appearing, and so on.

So here I am an hour later searching for crap and manually deleting it, while AVG scans merrily away. I think I nipped it in the bud.

But what really ticks me off is that "Windows System Defender" is a well-known piece of malware, and yet AVG just let it pass while barely a whine.

I think I may have nipped the infection in the bud, but it's time to try Avast!

I still can't run "regedit" (somehow that got disabled) to see if I still have have any unwanted start-up items. I'm wary of rebooting now.

Yes, I know I should get a Mac !

[DimPrawn]

I've told people here before that the so called Anti-Virus ware is merely useless bloat that turns a quad-core supercomputer into a 386 in terms of performance.

I don't run any anti-virus and have never had a virus on any of my computers ever.

[northernladuk]

I don't run any anti-virus and have never had a virus on any of my computers ever.

Whoopy woo! Well your running on borrowed time them. They exist for a reason and do a pretty good job all in all. How exactly can you be sure you don't have a virus if you don't have a checker by the way??? Zombie PC anyone?

Firstly AVG hasn't let you down. You got what you paid for!! It stopped a some viri in the past. For free even that seems like a job well done.

Second. Are you SURE its a virus? Malware and other types of downloads can do the same thing, you download an executable that passes the high quality service <cough> of a free piece of software and then starts to run its program as it is supposed to do. Its more likely some program is running creating all these and some of the stuff it's downloading/installing is the actual virus.

[cojak]

I'm not sure how it happened, but my PC got a virus this morning. Pop-ups started appearing... humm suspicious. Windows firewall suddenly becomes disabled. Quick look in Task Manager and "oh no" some stuff there that really shouldn't be. Quick look in the registry and some new unwanted start-up items appeared. Then some "unhandled exception" errors appear. Looks like a caught a bad dose of "Windows System Defender".

Belatedly a few pop-ups from AVG start telling me I have a virus. I can almost see it infecting my machine in real-time as more and more new exe's appear in the Windows directory, processes appearing, and so on.

So here I am an hour later searching for crap and manually deleting it, while AVG scans merrily away. I think I nipped it in the bud.

But what really ticks me off is that "Windows System Defender" is a well-known piece of malware, and yet AVG just let it pass while barely a whine.

I think I may have nipped the infection in the bud, but it's time to try Avast!

I still can't run "regedit" (somehow that got disabled) to see if I still have have any unwanted start-up items. I'm wary of rebooting now.

Yes, I know I should get a Mac !

Have you run a System Restore? I would have hit the Sys Res button the moment I saw something amiss, and then cleaned the crap off...

This is one of the good things about Windows (though I'm sure there's the same kind of ting on Macs).

[DimPrawn]

Whoopy woo! Well your running on borrowed time them. They exist for a reason and do a pretty good job all in all. How exactly can you be sure you don't have a virus if you don't have a checker by the way??? Zombie PC anyone?

I don't think so. I run several online virus scans every week and they (and windows defender) never pick up anything.

Locked down PC's, hardware firewall, fully patched computers don't get computer virus problems.

Idiots visiting warez sites and opening attachments from unknown people etc do.

[Platypus]

Whoopy woo! Well your running on borrowed time them. They exist for a reason and do a pretty good job all in all. How exactly can you be sure you don't have a virus if you don't have a checker by the way??? Zombie PC anyone?

Firstly AVG hasn't let you down. You got what you paid for!! It stopped a some viri in the past. For free even that seems like a job well done.

Second. Are you SURE its a virus? Malware and other types of downloads can do the same thing, you download an executable that passes the high quality service <cough> of a free piece of software and then starts to run its program as it is supposed to do. Its more likely some program is running creating all these and some of the stuff it's downloading/installing is the actual virus.

It's the paid-for version of AVG I use, so it did let me down.

yes, I'm sure it's malware

no, I didn't "download it" - it was a drive-by infection

[DimPrawn]

no, I didn't "download it" - it was a drive-by infection

Let me guess, using Internet Explorer, logged in as admin visiting P2P download sites, porn sites, etc?

You weren't browsing the BBC website were you?



The PC equivalent of shagging a 1000 crack hoe's

[Platypus]

Let me guess, using Internet Explorer, logged in as admin visiting P2P download sites, porn sites, etc?

You weren't browsing the BBC website were you?



The PC equivalent of shagging a 1000 crack hoe's

Using firefox, probably the site where I found a torrent I was looking for. Not pr0n but an "Intelligence Squared" debate.

Now AVG is doing a command line scan in safe mode and seems to be finding lots of stuff using its heuristic scan, much of which I suspect is OK.

Today's started out just grand

EDIT: where's the "weeps" smiley ?

[Platypus]

weeps even more - AVG is now busy destroying my Cygwin installation

[DimPrawn]

Top tip - use Virtual PC to visit dodgy sites.

When the website wrecks your OS (which it will everytime), delete the image and go back to a fresh one.