I've been struggling with this computer virus all week. It's a Humpty Dumpty event, trying to put things back together again. I didn't lose any files, because they're on another drive, but I lost programs, bookmarks, cookies that help me sign into sites. Because I use gmail I didn't have the worries of it ripping through my own email addresses, or of losing email.
Right before we went to lunch yesterday it started falling apart again. In a weird way I admire the nefarious nerd who coded this virus, because it is so detailed and far reaching. For instance, it blocks you from typing any name of any possible anti-virus software into google. If you do manage to download any anti-virus software, it makes sure it corrupts the file during installation so you get nowhere with it. It sets up google to go to an advertisement everytime you enter anything! Any anti-virus software you already have installed just skips through a scan in 30 seconds and declares all is fine.
So today I spent two hours wiping clean my C drive, 3 hours running a scan from Malwarebyte, which didn't find any trace, so then I started the long hard business of putting it all together again.
Another bummer-- my Sony Vaio is four years old, so in effect I'm going back through time to 2005. Some of the programs I've depended on since then require Windows Service Pack 2, always a controversial update, but Microsoft doesn't include it in their updates anymore, so the programs won't install. I'm sure there's a work around, but do I have to become an amateur IT to get my hard top back?
6 comments:
If that virus geek could probably cure diseases and ensure world peace if he focused on them instead of trying to destroy computers.
I wonder what motivates them? Is it some kind of weird power trip? Revenge at the world for socially rejecting them? Nothing good on T.V.?
Sorry to hear it's been such a hassle to get your machine up to speed!
so sorry you're going through this
This is a nightmare. (Wish it were.)
Oh dear. That malware is infamous. I got hit at work last week, and it was two solid days of wiping and rebuilding my hard drive. I feel your pain! Not only that, but my computer was zombiefied and spewed out spam to the four corners of the earth. An account here. http://beckyhaycox.com/hamblog/?p=1222. Hope everything gets better for you! Becky
Long ago I was a moderator at a Flash actionscript forum, Namowal, and there were a couple of guys who just wanted to post code on how to use Flash to wipe someone's hard drive. One I remember in particular, who was from Eastern Europe.
wow, Becky, I read your story and you are a mighty IT warrior!
I've had a full day of no virus stink, but oh Lou Dobbs moment dealing with Adobe support today as I tried to retrieve a registration number for software that was downloaded rather than coming in on the sturdy safe cd.
Humpty is a great image for this, by the way.
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