we had a dork spammer with a trojan

for the future, migrate to Linux, oreeBSD , openBSD, QNX , or some other kind of decent and possibly free OS where doing silly tricks like that are beyond the capabilities of the common lamer . those who dont use MS products are WAY less prone to catching computdolorer viruses. trash MS !
can you describe more exactly what's happening ? i could give you some hint (maybe).

 

Opened automatically on my PC.

Re-format and equip yourself with teh right protection; I personally use Zone Alarm Pro Suite (virus AND malware protection), with AdAware Pro on the side (real-time malware protection).

I have yet to lose with this combo.

Otherwise, don't open e-mails from people you don't know, don't click unknown links (check the URL at the bottom of the window with veracity), and just use logic in general whenever opening files.

As for me, I was infected on my 120 GB and external 40 GB and 80 GB drives. All of the previous drives have been re-formatted and are currently in trouble-free use, and I have also added a 500 GB drive to setup and am feeling quite confident.

DON'T install Microsoft's "anti-spyware" and "trojan remover" softwares, as they are major targets of hackers.

 

My PC went down the other day too,
had to re-format my drive but didn't lose any files or work, thankfully.
I did not open or click any external links as far as I know.

Are all you people telling me that this virus installed itself through this
site automatically.? If so that seems a real worry.

 

i've made some search around (ok... its likely you already did it before) and it appears that there are no known virus/trojan threats that come with that name so it appears that it's an arbitrary name choosen by the spammer. since you didnt tell it, i suppose that you dont know what kinda beast is that trojan . if i'm right, it may be of great help to know the name of the "virus" . send me a copy of it by mail and i'll try to identify it and if this fails run on a virtual machine to see what it does.
as long as one does not know what kind of trojan that file is, the only possible suggestion is that those that ran the trojan on their PC should say a little prayer and stop accessing their disks in write mode , mount them on a clean PC and then scan those disks with an updated antivirus.
of course a virus scan is useless if that trojan is still unknown. serious hooligans use to write their own trojans in order to baffle the antiviruses .
hope to give some help...
well, if at this point i still didnt understand what you said please be patient! i dont understand english very well, suffer with insomnia and i suspect i'm mentally ill too
peace
Stefano

 

SakuraO is another one. DON'T OPEN.

 

I recommend Zone Labs Zone Alarm, Lavasoft Ad-Watch, and Mozilla (latest version, whatever it is at the time you read this). Drop me a line for the full-versions, or I may post them here, dependent of further inquiry...

 

I use Zone Alarm and it keeps blocking my browser, even though i tell it to always allow firefox/explorer. Anybody had this problem?

 

zone alarm is a toy and whats more it is an ineffective toy as a firewall it is rubbish.
I would suggest that you go to your local computer hardware shop and ask for a cheap hardware firewall by D-Link or some other such manufacturer. The problem with a software firewall is that so many trojans can render it inoperative though you will not notice. A hardware firewall can be bought for as cheaply as £35 UK and will be your best hope. Obviously if you can afford it - pay more - hardware firewalls are worth it and if you can afford a Netgear for about £180 - £250 I would get one if I were you.
You cant leave the door wide open and then complain youve been burgled -if you do then I suggest you wake up to reality a bit more. I am not suggesting it will stop everything but begin with that and add more security after.

 

Dr Phibes, do you know of any decent firewalls that are cheap to buy and are they any good.? I use zone alarm myself, the freeware version but was thinking about subscribing to the full paid version, would this be wise.?
I have no idea how these HARDWARE firewalls work or how effective they are, do the really work better than having software firewalls like Norton or Zone Alarm.
How do hardware firewalls actually work,
cheers for any help or any links you know of where I can buy, from the UK, a really cheap hardware firewall.

 

Basically the hardware firewall will act as a router - I used the term firewall but they are really "router firewalls". I believe they do work much better. One reason being that a software firewall on a computer is open to attack by any software which your security failed to pick up. It is well known that some viruses disable your anti-virus and firewall software often without you realising. This would be quite difficult with a hardware firewall.
All you would do is buy one and put it between your modem and the computer. Access the interface via a browser and run a "wizard" which will help you set it up. It will basically set your system up with very little knowledge from you in a matter of a few minutes (10 or so). That is usually enough to give you more protection than Zone alarm etc. From that point the object is to harden the security of the firewall and on your PC. The more you spend (generally) the better the security. I would recomend
D-link at the very low end, Netgear for mid range budgets, and cisco at the professional level. Go to a computer fair, they have them in most cities, or Maplins

 

I was one who opened that link and had sudden browser mayhem. I simply shut all browsers using task manager and immediately ran my AV scan and SpyBot Search & Destroy and the probem trojan was found, blocked and deleted within 15 minutes.

For AV protection I recommend BitDefender over Zone Alarm any day. Also have SpywareBlaster up to date with its definitions and sector protections activated.

Note: I'm about as much of a compu-know-nothing as one could be and still I managed to ride that puppy into the ground before it could get jiggy with my HD, so there's hope for everyone.

 

Thanks Dr Phibes, I know of Maplin catalogues and I'll start checking it out.
Zone Alarm is OK but sometimes things do play up still. I've also used Norton
but that gave me even more issues.
Hardware Firewall looks like a very good option, afterall it's what offices use, etc

 

Get a Mac.

 

You Mac people better hope that everyone doesn't get a Mac as then you would be a bigger target for writters of viruses.