Smarter Viruses: They Mock You Now

[brad.dude03]

Hearing about this in an article in PC Magazine, I decided to try it out for myself. Searching through hundreds of keygens, cracks and other warez, I finally found what I was looking for in an Ages Of Empires III keygen. The minute I started the keygen executable my computer froze under the strain. I checked the task manager and CPU usage was at 100% and teir were about 10 extra programs on the list that I had never heard of using up all of my CPU power. I decided to reboot my computer, to no avail. By the time I logged back in, there were several new links on my desktop. I decided to see what my homepage looked like. First it originally opens up to about:blank but immediately redirects to a new website about system security. I close the window. Several minutes later, after browsing around to see wat other damage has been done, a popup window appears from no where asking me if I wanted to make hundreds of dollars a day cheating a online poker. Valiantely, I resist the urge and answer no and close the window. Yes, the popup had a yes or no answer. After clicking as such, another 10 popup windows appeared in its place. I closed all of them and ventured to brave internet explorer again. Opening it up, I took a closer look at the site, sitting there for about 10 seconds reading, an explorer message pops up from the site (even though it wasen't in an IE window) and tells me that I have this virus on my computer and that it is currently corrupting my executables. Great to know. It then asks me if I would like to install their software to get rid of the virus. I hit cancel on the window, but an installation wizard pops up and again asks me if I would like to proceed installing the software. The setup informs me that it has concluded that there is no anti virus software on my computer. I conclude that the setup wizard must not have been searching very hard. I cancel the installation and close the windows and find that there are two icons on my desktop, both for internet security and PC safety. I open control panel and do a system restore and later reenable my anti virus and antispy software, as well as delete those shortcuts from my desktop.


This was my encounter with the new breeds of virus and as you can see, hackers are getting more and more confident, even daring to mock me, which I find is quite funny, but some moron using AOL probably wouldn't know that and would fall right for it, downloading their supposed anti virus software and just putting more crap on it. The virus informs me that it is there, tells me my anti virus software isn't working, tells me that I should download their tools to remove it and places icons on my desktop for internet safety. If I didn't go looking for such things I would say my pride has been slightly wounded.


Learn from this, hackers love to screw with your PC and your head.

 

[Shados]

Not neccisarily smarter, just more annoying. Also, you really don't need a firewall and an anti-virus to keep your computer safe, you just have to know what you're doing - orrrrrrrrr use Lynx.

 

[brad.dude03]

lynx? and yes I know, but thats what the noobs would consider safety. and just wait till you, without you firewall gets haxed and then we'll see what happens

 

[Shados]

Lynx is a text-only browser. Also, there have been hack attempts on my computer, they've failed. Although, to tell the truth, the 'hackers' in those cases seemed to be more script kiddies than anything.

 

[brad.dude03]

i see, i see. Well, whatever the case is, nothing gets on to my computer unless I want it there, and in this case I did. AOL users are a little more primative then the rest of us, however and they'd fall for the bait immeditely and just screw themselves over. For all of us who see through this attempt, I'd consider it mocking.

 

[Ralle]

The "100% cpu" thing is very common on my computer. Sometimes it just starts using 100% I can feel it because of my labtop. It starts "winding" a lot when it uses 100% cpu but when I open up the task manager it laggs and then the cpu is low.. very annoying

 

[ventuz]

Firefox + NoScript extension for Firefox

Every months I update AVG and scan computer, no virus. Never had any virus since I got Firefox + NoScript.

 

[Shados]

I'll admit, I do have an anti-virus program, but it's more there so I can show off the fact I haven't had a virus in years. Also ventuz, I reccomend you uninstall AVG and get something trustworthy like Antivir, AVG can be dodgy as all hell.

 

[GST_Nemisis]

AOL users are a little more primative then the rest of us, however and they'd fall for the bait immeditely and just screw themselves over.

i have used AOL and have been active in the development of anti virus software for various companys for part of my job as an Junior IT consultant. I can tell you now AOL has very good (free) anti virus software that is regularly updated, user freindly and rivaling the software by symantec (whom i worked for). so instead of complaining about AOL because of an old steriotype pehpas you should use it and you wont get any viruses. i use AOL and i download plenty of stuff yet i have NEVER been infected with viruses, even when i download stuff with viruses in them AOL always catches them.

 

[brad.dude03]

rite....AOL employee propaganda time everyone xD

 

[brad.dude03]

And besides, I'm not saying anything at all about the AOL software itself, i'm talking about the users. It's really AOL's fault because they designed their sogtware to be geared towards users that have never had any experience at all going on the internet. All they want to do is figure out how to do their menial little tasks in an uncomplicated format. AOL does this just great, but what i'm saying is because this user wouldn't have any such knowledge, they would fall for this kind of thing regardless, and i'm sure a free piece of antivirus software wouldn't be the most comprehensive (I'm guessing that would recquire a little more money), so it would get through and cause trouble.