It's Virus season!

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-Metablade-
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Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:54 pm

It's Virus season!

Post by -Metablade- »

Well, technically, there is no such season as "Virus Season" but Viruses seem to propagate more during the Holiday season, probably because most of us are not paying attention as much as we normally do.
Yesterday and today, I am dealing with the w32.sober.x worm.

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/d ... .x@mm.html

Why?
Becuase no matter how many times you tell your clients not to open attachments, they do.
And who can I blame for this week's infection?
Why the CEO himself.

Nice.

Here are some current threats to watch for:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/global/vinfodb.html
There's a bit of Metablade in all of us.
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gmattson
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My free

Post by gmattson »

Advast is catching all of them so far. By last count, 8 so far today and it is only 3PM.

Susan also uses Advast on her computer, but gets all her email from Lycos. Apparently, Lycos stops the infected email before recipients can open them. I use "Outlook", that allows most everything in.
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
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-Metablade-
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Post by -Metablade- »

Susan is your significant other, I presume?
Indeed she is quite wise. Using a browser to obtain your mail (usually your DSL provider will allow use of one) may not have all of the bells and whistles that Outlook has, but it will pretty much knock out almost all of the viruses that come from spoofing or forging.

By the way:
Have you tried Thunderbird by Mozilla?
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

It's Niiiiiiiiice :lol:

Also, Outlook has a web client if you are using Exchange, so if you use Outlook at work, ask your System Admin (Unless that's you! :) ) To show you where it lives.

Here are some other good, free email clients:

http://email.about.com/od/emailclients/

There are zillions of alternatives to Outlook.
Just look on the web.
Which one is right for you?

:lol:
There's a bit of Metablade in all of us.
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CANDANeh
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Re: My free

Post by CANDANeh »

gmattson wrote:Advast is catching all of them so far. By last count, 8 so far today and it is only 3PM.

Susan also uses Advast on her computer, but gets all her email from Lycos. Apparently, Lycos stops the infected email before recipients can open them. I use "Outlook", that allows most everything in.
I currently use AVG, seems ok but if Advast is better how so?
Léo
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gmattson
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Not familiar with AVG,

Post by gmattson »

But have used the professional versions of Norton and MacAfee. Because I use Outlook (Metablade will have to coach me on it's proper use!) I get tons of junk email every day. With Norton & others, the virus's always seemed to sneak in... often disabling my ability to access Pro versions.

Someone on the forums suggested that Avast and Zone Alarm (both free) are excellent, so I tried them. Haven't had a computer problem since.

Someone (here) said that the troublemakers target the big software companies with their viruses and to a lesser extent ignore the smaller companies, like Avast.

A big help in reducing the number of unwanted junk mail has been the professional version of "Mailwasher". This program screens all mail before it reaches my computer. I can train the program to delete or bounce the junk mail. I guess the spammers don't resell email addresses that get bounced, since my junk mail is slowly being reduced.
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
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Mary S
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Post by Mary S »

GEM I had (note: had) Avast on my home computer. I constantly updated and scanned faithfully for bad things. Last week my computer starting acting funny and lo and behold, I had a virus and two worms that buried themselves deep in my system and basically shut me down. My machine is now being stripped and fixed and will be downloaded with Norton when I get it back. I thought Avast was the ticket....I don't think that so much anymore.....
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