Milia
Professional Neko Impersonator
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2016
- Messages
- 247
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- 505
Just a tip pony, if you plug in your external drives, or any USB drive for the matter, hold down Shift to prevent auto-run, from running, which will help prevent an infection from running unless you execute an infected file. As a general safety practice, autorun should Always be disabled.
Tried that. Didn't work. Still popped up and asked me what I wanted to do with it. Hopefully not opening it or picking any of the other options and just turning off the autoplay pop-up will be enough. Currently scanning the external drives. Fingers crossed.
I know autorun should be disabled, but I'm lazy. I like being able to open something immediately after plugging it in. I'm just asking for trouble, I guess.
I hate when people put laziness over safety of their own data. Makes me want to say: You deserved that, hope you learn from it.
Not being aware is completely different case.
Sure, infections via usb sticks are quite often and common. But a lot depends on few things: Do you have proper antivirus that scans inserted drives? Yes? 9/10 cases you will be fine.
Same goes if last host that used that device had any proper antivirus.
Second one would be Malwarebytes (free version doesn't have autoscan, but doing it manually at least weekly is good enough to filter most meaningless shit). But it won't save you from usb infections.
Also, what I would recommend is getting Kaspersky Rescue Disk (it's free), burning it as bootable CD/USB and keeping around. It is linux based live OS so it should be invulnerable to most threats you can get on windows and should help cleaning your OS in many (not all) cases. I would recommend getting that with a PC you suspect is not infected.
Considering what you got I would recommend getting such rescue disk asap. Also, consider ALL writable media you put in your PC as infected and only spreading infection. After that is done cleaning up, try repairing any damage you got. Also, clean those usb sticks when using such live OS rescue disk (doesn't need to be Kaspersky, anything decent or better should do).
On top of that SalityKiller is another method of dealing with it.
Just as a side note, autorun is a nice prevention method for many nasty things, but... It's not perfect. Stuxnet, for example, didn't gave a single fuck about autorun or anyone manually executing it (in a way).
You can be fine without proper security software, doesn't mean you are safe, those are not same things.
Unless it's closed network without any connection to the outside that takes only data created in or from such network.
Malwarebytes works against... well, malware. Not every ""virus"" is a malware. It's an extra tool to deal with small shits.What's there to learn? That I shouldn't be lazy and that I need good protection? What enlightenment. Never could've figured that out.
Most of the time this shit gets in anyway no matter what. At least that's how it is with us. I can't stop it. My only hope is getting rid of it. No amount of protection helps. Sigh. I dream of the day when viruses will be a thing of the past and some majestic, perfect, free program will be able to destroy them all easily. A pipe dream, I know. But a good dream.
Anyway, lazy or not, I don't think anyone deserves this. Except the bastard who invented it. Hope it bites him on the ass hard.
No antivirus on this baby, sadly. Can't afford the ones you gotta buy and most of the free ones suck or slow down our PC. Not that it matters. Having one never helped before. We download a lot of shit and most of the time antivirus warns us that it's not safe, but we still gotta open it. Gotta do our job or else we don't eat. So having antivirus is pretty much useless since we're just gonna ignore it. Same goes with USBs. We transfer a lot of data to a lot of people regularly. You think my dad's gonna give a shit when an antivirus warns him that a USB or program he downloaded might be infected or whatever? Hell no. Gotta do what he was payed for. It's not a problem for him. Once the virus starts messing with his work he'll just reinstall the whole damn PC again and continue on. No, I'm the one that's always screwed. It's my data that gets damaged. My games that get infected. My browser that shits out ads and doesn't let me watch my Youtubes and my animus. It's always me that gets the shaft. And what can I do? Am I supposed to stay awake all day, every day making sure my dad or one of my brothers doesn't download something that screws up the PC again? Trust me, I'd love to. I'd forsake sleep and food if I could. If it meant never dealing with this shit again. But it's not an option. So fuck me, I guess.
Malwarebytes didn't do shit against this thing. I've used that piece of junk every time I got a virus and every time it either finds nothing or the problem doesn't go away once it removes the shit it finds. Worthless. Trash.
That rescue disk stuff seems way out of my league. I don't like things that I have to boot. Ain't gonna mess with that. At least not yet. Plus, I don't have any clean PCs I can use to get it.
Thanks for the advice though. Right now everything appears clean. Haven't had an issue yet. Fingers crossed it stays that way. At least for a while. At least until next year. Can't ask for more than that.
If it comes back then I guess I'll try some of the things you recommended. And it probably will, knowing my luck. First time I noticed this thing was when we were transferring some things to a customer's USB. Didn't think much of it then. Should've formatted that bastard straight away. Now I gotta take care when he brings it back for more. And hope it didn't infect his PC too. Unless it came from his PC in the first place. In which case we're both screwed. Oh well. Problems for another day, I guess. Too tired to think about that now. Haven't gotten much sleep since this whole thing started. Just like last time. I swear, these things will be the death of me.
You could use deep freeze to stop stuff from installing, though deepfreeze can get infected itself...
A good idea would be just to get the machine working good and then ghost it, though you'll have to do that at regular intervals as it won't restore the data you've acquired since the last ghosting.
Except it doesn't even do that. Not when I use it anyway. The hell kind of new breed of viruses am I getting when shit that's supposed to remove it can't do jack about it?Malwarebytes works against... well, malware. Not every ""virus"" is a malware. It's an extra tool to deal with small shits.
There are ways dealing with multiple users when some of them don't give a fuck.
- Zero one would be to stand your ground and put everyone in their place, force them to learn and understand without any mercy until it's stuck in their heads harder than skull itself. That's how I "trained" my family on the matter of safe PC usage, even though my dad won't take shit from anyone and prefers doing everything his own way, I don't give a fuck about that or his way. But this method doesn't apply to everyone.
- First one would be to have linux distro installed next to windows OS and just use that. But in case someone formats your pc, you are screwed.
- Second one would be to use virtual machine, but knowing life, no one will want to even bother on how to use/learn that.
- Third option: Backup your important data and keep it for yourself, update it from time to time when you are sure pc is not infected.
- Fourth option would be to have OS on external drive (like USB), be it Linux or Windows, you can install it there and use it from there. Best one would be Linux distro with Windows like appearance. Chance of getting shit that would work on WinOS and Linux Distro at the same time is so low that you shouldn't encounter it. This way, your data is safe, no one fucks around with your things and if anything happens to data on internal PC's HDD, you don't give a single fuck. Plus, you can always copy games from that drive when logged in WinOS and play there.
As for the deserving it, well, that's my way of living and I am not backing up from it. When I face an issue I try to resolve it or find another way around to deal with it. Because there is always a way or an option. And what if I don't know any? Well, sometimes it requires a little bit of research and willingness to do. As soon as I declare that I am lazy and something happens that I could prevent, then I got what I deserved.
Please, read again. I never said change OS, I said "have linux distro installed next to windows OS", there is a huge difference. Normally it boots windows, but you have an option to choose other OS that should be safe for use. There are small distros that barely take any space and make a reliable OS being available at hand. Even better, those often work greatly for cleaning windows from viruses. Also, reason why those are often available in live form for removable media.And installing anything other than Windows is not an option. Mostly because I prefer Windows. But even if I wanted to, see sentence above. This PC is shared. But it belongs to my dad. It's used for his work. I can't go around messing with it.
I do believe in random occurrences that can happen due to probability of those (rare or not, chance is there), but there is no such thing as having or not having luck. Same with curses, pure fairy tales.Knowing my luck, there was no stopping this. Universe hates me.
Sounds too complicated for me. Besides, I wouldn't know how to then clean my Windows anyway.Please, read again. I never said change OS, I said "have linux distro installed next to windows OS", there is a huge difference. Normally it boots windows, but you have an option to choose other OS that should be safe for use. There are small distros that barely take any space and make a reliable OS being available at hand. Even better, those often work greatly for cleaning windows from viruses. Also, reason why those are often available in live form for removable media.
I do believe in random occurrences that can happen due to probability of those (rare or not, chance is there), but there is no such thing as having or not having luck. Same with curses, pure fairy tales.
But I agree, you do you, I'll do me. Trying to tell how someone should live his life is a little bit stupid and obnoxious (unless it's a family and affects me directly).
Also, fuck bureaucracy!
"Sir, your ID has expired, you need a new one, it's the law."
"Oh, okay, make me a new one then."
"Sure! That'll be 30 monies then."
"............"
30 dollars is not that expensive, is it? The license lasts for 4 to 8 years, depending on where you live. That's less than a dollar month.
Pretty much what I felt when it told me about themes 'where do I turn the old stuff back on' I know new stuff makes you suspicious just because it is new, but this is new and unasked for.New Firefox layout.
Can't I just get the old ones back?