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Do You Have A Computer Virus?
by John J. Fanning
Over the Christmas holiday, a neighbor of mine called and asked if I could help
solve a computer problem he was having with the family's PC. During the phone
call, he told me that the computer was running unbearably slow and that he could
no longer get his Internet Explorer browser to function. My neighbor has two
young children and he speculated that they might have filled the hard drive on
his computer with downloaded music. I told him to disconnect the computer and
bring it by my house and that I would take a look at it and see if I could be
of any help.
When I had the chance, I powered up his PC and took note of the fact that
it was indeed running slowly and it took about 3 minutes before the computer
finished
booting. The first thing I did was run a check of the computer's hard disk
by accessing the system information. I saw that the computer had an 80-gigabyte
hard drive and that about 70 percent of the drive was filled. Although that
is
close to the minimum 25% that one should keep free on their hard drive, it
told me that the hard drive and downloaded music was not the main reason for
the computer
running slowly.
Having discounted that suspect, I moved on to the next obvious problem found
on personal computers - computer viruses. The computer had two virus protection
software programs installed. One was Symantec's Norton Virus Protection,
version 2002 and the other was a free program downloaded from the Internet
that supposedly
offers virus protection. I knew from experience that this was a phony program
that in reality, loads your computer with spyware and adware. So my first
change in the computer was to remove this software. Following that, I hooked
the computer
up to my own DSL to download the latest virus definitions from Symantec's
website, intending to run a complete virus check of the computer. I happen
to use DirectWay
as my home ISP and the modem has 5 blue lights attached that provide signals
for transmitting, sending, power on, etc. As soon as I connected the computer
to the Ethernet port, these lights started to blink continuously. This
confirmed to me that the computer was indeed infected with some sort of malicious
software
that was communicating on its own over the Internet.
After downloading the latest virus definitions, I let the Norton Antivirus
software run a complete system scan of the computer. About an hour or
so later, the program
finished by telling me that no viruses were detected. I only felt semi-confident
in that report. I knew that some viruses, let loose inside a computer,
have the capability of blocking even the best anti-virus software like
Norton.
Some can
even allow anti-virus software to run checks and provide false reports.
But, in this case I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I knew
that my
next step was to download a spyware and adware killing program but that
meant I would
have to pay for the program by entering my credit card information over
the Internet. The idea that there could be a virus in the computer that
could
capture my credit
card and other personal information as I was making this purchase wasn't
all that appealing to me, but I didn't have many other options that could
work as
quickly as I wanted. Fortunately, I keep a credit card that I use exclusively
for on-line purchases and I purposely keep a $500 limit on the card.
This doesn't give me all the protection I would like, but it limits the loss
that could be
incurred and makes it easy for me to cancel the right card if unknown
charges
appear.
I went on-line and downloaded Spyware Doctor software from PC Tools.
This little program costs $29.00 and is well worth every penny. Once
downloaded
and installed,
I let the program run a deep scan of the computer, which took about
two hours. Following the scan, Spyware Doctor reported that it had found
over 16 thousand
infected files on the computer. If that number seems like a lot - it
is. Spyware and Adware are tiny programs downloaded to your computer
from Email,
Instant
Messages and websites that you visit. Some of these programs will hijack
your web browser and open windows to various Internet sites or even
grind your browser
to a halt. The worst of these programs are a lot more malicious; digging
up personal information about you from your computer files or logging
every key you depress
on your computer so that your passwords and credit card information
can be obtained. If you do not have good anti-spyware software installed
on your
computer and
you don't keep your anti-spyware and anti-virus software updated, you
have these programs in your computer. And if you have kids in your
home that
use our computer,
chances are you have thousands of these infections. If an Internet
site is offering you anything for free like a game, coupons or chance to win
some
fabulous prize,
chances are the price you pay for that free item is an infection inside
your computer.
I instructed Spyware Doctor to delete all the infected files it found
and the program attempted to do so, but about halfway through the
procedure, the program
hung and I had to reboot the computer. This isn't an uncommon thing
to have happen. Once you have viruses, adware or spyware in your
computer, these
programs will
fight attempts to remove them. Spyware Doctor and all anti-virus
software are at their best when they detect viruses before they get inside
your
computer. Once in however, it can take some serious medicine to get
rid
of the infections.
The serious medicine I opted for was Symantec's Norton Antivirus
2006 software. This newest version of the software comes equipped
with anti-spyware
and
anti-adware protection. Something that the 2002 version, already
installed on the computer,
didn't have. I downloaded the software from Symantec for around
$69.00, updated it with the latest virus definitions and then let it run
a full scan on the
computer. A few hours later, all the spyware and adware was removed
and what's more, the
new version had detected and removed four very nasty computer viruses
it had also detected.
Upon rebooting the computer, I found the PC was now working like
it should. It immediately informed me that there were MS Windows
updates
that should
be put
on the computer. Apparently, the computer viruses in the computer
had blocked the automatic Windows updates, in order to prevent
the computer
from downloading
anything that might kill them. Moving to the Windows update site,
I ran the activeX program there and found that the Windows XP
program had not
been
upgraded with
Service Pac 2. This is something every PC running Windows XP
must do.
This service pac is loaded with new features that are meant to
protect your
computer from
just the things that had made this computer stop working properly.
I downloaded this service pac and then rebooted the computer.
It worked perfectly. I set the Spyware Doctor program and the
Norton
Antivirus
2006 program to
automatically block spyware and adware attempting to infect
the computer and called my neighbor
to pick up his box.
So, if you find that your PC is not working as quickly as it
used to or that your browser seems to have a mind of its
own, you might
want
to follow
the
path I took to bring it back into shape and make surfing
the Internet an enjoyment
instead of a headache.
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