Virus...

[heymagic]

This laptop has been "fussy" for quite a while. Always showed good on virus scans and so on. Well a few days ago it went nuts, Norton fired up and started spitting out virus notifications, email went rampant and something called Spy Sheriff took over the screen. In the next few minutes the computer became overwhelmed with email sending. Norton caught them all, I think... I couldn't do anything much, internet was available through Netscape, but slow and sporadic. Norton and several other AV programs wouldn't download on Netscape and I couldn't switch to IE. PC even locked up in safe mode. I called Norton and they tried ( I have "05 that is current, Adaware and Spybot ). Something has kept turning off my firewall from time to time. Nice guy at Norton tried..gave up, said to call HP. I called Circuit City ( extended warranty). Software not covered, however this guy said he would help me re-load the PC anyway. So he cleaned it out and started from the beginning with the recovery disk. Lost some email contacts, favorites and a few pics, nothing of consequence though. Laptop is happy again, much faster. PC tech said Norton was not all that..he said Zone Alarm was good and he used something called ClamWin on his. Free but a little hands on..whatever that means. Anyhow good service from Circuit City this time.

[Go Aweigh2452]

Gene, I've said it before and I use it regularly... go to this site below and run it at least once a month. I too have the same/latest Norton as you but this free site finds stuff Norton does not. Because it is web based, it is always very current. You do not have to register to run the software. You will have to download definitions first before it can do its thing. I highly recommend you try it... and put zone alarm on your puter too. That too is free.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

[SomeSailor]

Yeah, there's no sure way to determine if a computer is infected. Any of the virus scanning software only scans for known viruses. Some of the more advanced stuff uses what is called "holistic monitoring" which is fancy talk for watching how programs are acting and alert you when something suspicious is up.

There's a whole new breed of trojan out there called "zombies". You'll be hearing more of them in the future I'm sure. They basically get passed to you and just sit there. They're not viruses (yet) and Norton, or anyone else knows nothing about them. At a predetermined time, they come "alive" and contact a host. When this happens, they become true blue viruses and trojans and begin their dirty work.

It's a whole new way of doing things and so far there is no real way of discovering them until they start acting up. The best thing is an air-gap firewall. Meaning you have a physical separation between at least on PC and the network. At least then you have a chance to keep some safe area should you get infected.

Zone alarm is OK. Microsoft offers a free firewall for XP and 2000. Turn them on and keep them turned on is about the best approach. They estimate that 1 in FIVE PCs around the world have zombie code on them and are just waiting for the wake-up call. :(