Seems like a good group to get some realistic feedback from users of the internet if they ever had a system infected by a virus.
Some ground rules;
Let’s use 1995 as a beginning date (I’ll answer the obvious question. That is when Microsoft added Windows Explorer to Windows).
Let’s not go into what AV is the best, or only one to use, or is total crap. Just reply to the questions, if interested.
Ever had a system inadvertently infected by any form of malicious malware?
Ever permanently lost important data as result of an infection?
Had to re-install their operating system from scratch, or have had a saved boot copy to recover from, used a virus cleaner, or paid someone to remove the virus, as result of an infection?
Had an AV installed when infected?
Installed an AV after an infection?
Actually changed their online behaviour as a result of having an infection?
Seems like you probably intended this to be a poll as well as a discussion… so here’s your content in poll form:
Never had any malware issue
Ever had a system inadvertently infected by any form of malicious malware?
Ever permanently lost important data as result of an infection?
Had to re-install their operating system from scratch, or have had a saved boot copy to recover from, used a virus cleaner, or paid someone to remove the virus, as result of an infection?
Had an AV installed when infected?
Installed an AV after an infection?
Actually changed their online behaviour as a result of having an infection?
Well I’m on a desktop, and in the web UI there is a gear icon on the top right of the input box for a post. If you click it, there are three options: “Hide Details” “Blur Spoiler” and “Build Poll”. So I just copied your text and pasted it into the build poll tool. (And then quickly edited and added a negative option which allowed me to vote. )
I’ve received a couple of infected disks or sticks over the years, but working in IT security, I always test everything before I let it loose on my system, likewise I take a lot of precautions when surfing the web and downloading content.
A friend gave me a disk for my Amiga, back in 1988, which had a pr0n bootsector virus (it took over the screen and displayed an screen capture image from a film), but that was in the days of floppy only machines, so powering off and destroying the floppy solved that problem.
Since 1995, I’ve never had a virus. At work I’ve had to deal with viruses from users every now and then - Apple Macs were a constant pain in the late 80s, early 90s. As were, to a lesser extent, boot-sector viruses on PCs.
The last virus infection I had to deal with was 2 years ago, somebody managed to activate the GoldenEye virus on their laptop. Removed the disk, installed a new SSD, put a standard image on the drive and the user was back up and running in under an hour. Luckily GoldenEye only encrypted the local drive and users weren’t allowed to store anything locally, only on the file servers, so just a standard image was required.
We get a few reports every month of people having received phishing emails, but our users are paranoid enough that in 99.99% of attempts, they ask us for confirmation, before opening something. We have also implemented a corporate security training programme for all staff that have access to computers. It is an online course and they also send out test phishing emails every few months, to ensure that people are kept on their toes.
A friend got rooked into putting an AV on his Mac by one of those fear-mongering popups. He is on a limited income and the AV something he couldn’t afford. I talked him through taking off over the phone and getting the subscription for the AV ware ended.
Later I was at a friends house and found that someone had clicked on a popup (I can’t remember which one it was, there are so many) which had slowed down her 2018 iMac to a crawl. It had also blocked the OS from updating. I of course thought that she hadn’t been running the updates, but found that her computer was set to automatic updates.
Then I found, under a browser window she always keeps up as part of her job, a popup window listing all the things that were slowing her computer down and offering to remove them for a monthly fee. She had seen it and had ignored it.
It was easy for me to correct it by deleting the the program which was in plain sight in the Applications and then deleting it from trash before rebooting. The program must have been there for a very long time. It took about 24 hours for me to run all the software updates she had missed. For the rest of my stay she kept walking out of her office and thanking me.
Sure I’ve been infected, but for the most part I knew what I was getting into. “Yea, that link is super sketch… but I wonder what would happen?” Certainly never lost data because of it.
I’m under the belief that once a system has been infected, it can never truly be completely cleaned, and a full OS wipe is in order. But I also do an OS wipe on an annual basis regardless.
1-2x a year, I will pick up something that came thru the browser with Malware Bytes, Anti malware. Not all the time is it something to worry about.
But, I used top run Norton, Malware Bytles, M Bar (manually), Super-Anti Spyware (manually) and a couple of other programs… Along with the occasional Trend Micro web-based scan… Sometimes 1 would find something the rest did not see…
It is so nice to have switched to a Chromebook/Chrome operating system. I don’t have to waste time with all that 1-2x a month.
Back in the day when I was a young punk and computer pirate I was infected. Pirate Bay was not a safe place in any stretch of the imagination. Funny how when I grew up and went legitimate I suffered infections few and far between just some malware nonsense. It is hard not to get hit by malware. Not proud of my past but I guess the infections I did get… I had coming.
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