Sadly, I somehow contracted a computer virus this evening on my laptop. I don't know how it got there; when I got it, I was browsing Reddit, so I suspect whatever link I clicked on Reddit that suddenly triggered a Firefox zero-day exploit of sorts. Avast! managed to block three instances of it installing itself in places in my directory structure, and Spybot S&D successfully repelled it from becoming a startup service, but it managed to wipe my Start Menu, remove my desktop background, delete my taskbar settings, icons, and pinned items, and un-validate my Windows install. It then popped up 200 "Delayed write failed" messages for some reason before I pulled my battery to hard power-down my laptop. Three Avast! safe mode / boot mode passes later, and several helpful forum threads past, I have my laptop back in order, and to be on the safe side, I changed all of my passwords (ugh, what a pain), just in case the virus sent out my saved passwords somewhere. I'm hoping everything is clean now, but I'm very concerned, as I always am when I get a virus.

What about you guys? Have you gotten viruses? What do you do?

Oh, well, I have never had a virus on my computer, just a corrupted file that screwed everything up. However, my brother and one of my friends managed to get a virus (one of the fake anti-virus ones, if I remember correctly)

A quick avast boot scan/repair fixed it all up, horray!

I got one nasty virus. I did not know I had it until it hit me. I have no idea how I got it either. My computer video card died. So I had 56 color display. Then I was stuck in a boot loop . Took a new harddrive and a magnet to fix my computer. Thankfully I have backups of everything!

I have linux. I am pretty much immune. Hehe.

Feelin' lucky, punk?
Code:

i had some virusses too, but they seemed to easely being solved.. once i had that MS removal tool, which gives the same order of virus results in exact the same order at exact the same speed, so i saw quite fast that is was such a fake one, but one month later i got it again..solved xp

I never had a virus yet......and I use linux

While there are fewer malware for Linux, there is a tradeoff. Windows allows for pretty much a grab-it-and-go software installation process. Linux usually requires at least minimal fiddling around and sometimes long compile times. To be frank with you, I'd rather spend my time being productive than trying to figure out how to set something up so that I can be productive.


On topic: That's a real shame, Kerm
When I get scareware like that, I usually look it up before taking drastic action and then remove it myself, and then monitor WireShark afterwards, filtering out things that I'm using (such as IRC) as I use them, so that I get to see only strange packets that might get sent.
If I'm really frightened, or if I start seeing undiagnosable packets being sent, I'll boot up to a flash drive installation of Puppy Linux that I keep on hand and then copy all my files to a portable HDD, then I reformat my main Hard Disk. It's annoying, but it's as good an excuse as any to reinstall Windows and get that fresh install feeling

Have you ever heard of a package manager? That's much more grab 'n go than a million separate installers that can't resolve dependencies ever will be.



1. Note the "pretty much"
2. I'm not that stupid.

That's the beauty of Windows though; the developer of a product can distribute their own installers. The biggest problem with a package manager is that someone (often 3rd party) has to create the package for you to install, and a package for your specific distro isn't necessarily the latest version either. Most popular GNU utilities are usually updated frequently, but it's not guaranteed.
Package managers usually only distribute popular to semi-popular software. Any sort of independently developed software usually won't be found in any package managers, so you have to compile those for your current system anyways.
If I were to deploy a piece of software for Linux, I would have to do one of a few things:

1: Compile it for most popular distros and distribute many executables, and have to make sure I update all of them in an update (Even if I was distributing through a package manager I would still have to do this!)
2: Compile on-demand for additional distros, which would be a pain.
3: Distribute the source code and a makefile, with instructions as to how you should compile it.

Option #3 is the easiest for the developer, so unless the code is super proprietary, most software made by small teams will be distributed using method 3. This method also requires the end user to do work to use your software.


This is distinctly different from Windows, since Microsoft bends over backwards to maintain maximum compatibility between machines. My distribution options for Windows are:

1: Compile once per version (Maybe twice if I want to compile for x64 too, but that can be handled fairly easily) and distribute a zip, SFX archive, installer or whatever.
2: Distribute the source with a project file or makefile (or many) and instructions to compile.

On Windows, it's easier for everyone to do option 1. The developer doesn't have to write compiling instructions, and the user doesn't need to have a possibly convoluted and complex toolchain on their computer in order to run your software. Concealing the source code is an added bonus, too.


Now, I admit, option number 1 for Linux distribution could be mostly handled by scripts, however you'd still need all of the cross linkers for your target distros, and I'm not totally sure there are many...

Linux distros are not bad operating systems. They just lack good inter-compatibility, which is one thing that Windows excels at.

This is now a Linux debate thread

It looked like Avast successfully blocked it from being able to put its executable on my computer, which was good, and when I saw those delayed write messages, I got worried for my disk and my files, hence pulling the plug. At that point I think the virus was essentially gone, since it had only existed in memory at that point (I hope). I'll do another full sweep tomorrow evening to make sure everything is OK, but I think I identified it fairly well from the symptoms I described, so I think I don't have too much to worry about. Still memorizing all my new passwords.

Nick: Do you know what you did to get the viruses in the first place? Are you running an Antivirus, at least something like MSE?

I think you can blame Seana for that Seana, it wasn't meant for you to type in a terminal and run, it could be hidden in any script that compiles code, be it a Makefile, a perl script, or anything else. Since you'd already be running it as root, it would be able to zero out a random byte on your hard drive. Linux could have more viruses if people really wanted to write them for it, but keeping it without them is better, both for the user and developer. It maintains the sort of "trust" that keeps a lot of the system going. That said, if Linux were to ever become a huge competitor in the OS world, people would easily be able to mess with people and write viruses :/

Also, I'd say that, once you have everything set up, Linux is just as, else, more easy to grab programs and install them/use them. It does take a while to install all of the necessary libraries that you need to compile certain programs, but once you have them, you can easily install stuff from source. I have an entire directory where I keep programs that I have downloaded in a tarred format, untarred, and compiled them. For most programs, the tar is actually fairly small, and the code only takes about 3 or less minutes to compile (even on my netbook, Hedgewars only took about 3 minutes).

Kerm, good luck, I do hope that avast will show that it is off your system. Do you plan to do a boot scan, just in case any malicious code hides the virus on startup?

Hopefully you've managed to kill the bug.

The worst virus I've seen was from my brother. He was watching things he shouldn't have when the virus wiped everything from his computer. Tore apart all the programs and deleted them, all windows would do was boot and shut down. Ended up just wiping the drive and starting over for him. Worst I had was a virus that wouldn't let me go anywhere on the web, which I just saved my files, wiped the drive, and had that new computer smell for a while.

Qazz: I did a pair of boot scans yesterday night that came up clean. Also, if anyone does manage to get into the state that Daniel described, be aware that you can use an Ubuntu LiveCD to safely get something running on the system that will let you copy your documents and media off the system in question before wiping it, if it comes to that.

ah, sounds good then, do keep us updated on the virus problem, although, as you said, it is probably already over with >.>

I figure that just in case it's something brand new, running a boot-time check tomorrow evening will mean that I've gotten two new days of Avast! definitions, which should find anything it missed the first time around (hopefully). Thanks for the moral support.

any time, Kerm

I would be pretty huffy if something like this happened to my laptop, and I "fixed" it, just to find out that the virus was being incubated for a few days and next thing I know, no more laptop

Aye, but you have to admit, it would be creative and evil on the part of the virus writer, and wouldn't virus writers want to be as creative and evil as possible? Otherwise I wouldn't understand why they're writing viruses in the first place, not that I understand it anyway.