Still no infection

[Rosco]

What sorcery is this? Yet another who has evaded the evil viruses and malware. So Rosco, is it simply not doing stupid things on your computer or is it magic?

Well let me tell ya pilgram

I try to do safe browser but every once and a while i will download a movie or show off a torrent. NOthing heavy no software or keygens(i feel those are really risky.) every goes fine. ITs all about common sense if it feel like a virus it probably is a virus.

 

[gunslinger]

Well let me tell ya pilgram

I try to do safe browser but every once and a while i will download a movie or show off a torrent. NOthing heavy no software or keygens(i feel those are really risky.) every goes fine. ITs all about common sense if it feel like a virus it probably is a virus.

Ah, see. There is that common sense thing I been talking about for 8 pages now. Someone else gets it.

 

[Rosco]

Ah, see. There is that common sense thing I been talking about for 8 pages now. Someone else gets it.

To be quite honest i have used an antivirus for a year and half. How are the end users getting some many fbi viruses. What are people clicking on. Good for business but is baffling at times.

Common sense in this day and age is the most uncommon thing there is.

 

[jft135]

To be quite honest i have used an antivirus for a year and half. How are the end users getting some many fbi viruses. What are people clicking on. Good for business but is baffling at times.

Common sense in this day and age is the most uncommon thing there is.

I think most of it is drive by attacks. The majority of my customers know better than to click on random ads and popups, but somehow they're still getting infected.

 

[gunslinger]

I think most of it is drive by attacks. The majority of my customers know better than to click on random ads and popups, but somehow they're still getting infected.

I don't know about this. I used to think it was mostly drive by attacks but wouldn't the techs on here not running an AV be super vulnerable to them if this was indeed the case? I surf all kinds of sites: I'm a member of maybe 40-50 different forums, at least 6 torrent sites, and I'm always searching for random stuff. If anyone should ever have a drive by infection it should be me, yet I never do. None of the other techs running naked do either. So, Whats the answer? I have a friend from the gym who brought me his computer day before yesterday. According to him we browse pretty much the same sites all the time yet this is the 3 rd time in a year he has had the "child porn" ransomeware. How does that work exactly?


Are the people actually being truthful about the sites they are going to? Did the leave out the part where they double clicked the .exe file that popped up? Were they the only ones with access to the machine?

 

[jft135]

I don't know about this. I used to think it was mostly drive by attacks but wouldn't the techs on here not running an AV be super vulnerable to them if this was indeed the case? I surf all kinds of sites: I'm a member of maybe 40-50 different forums, at least 6 torrent sites, and I'm always searching for random stuff. If anyone should ever have a drive by infection it should be me, yet I never do. None of the other techs running naked do either. So, Whats the answer? I have a friend from the gym who brought me his computer day before yesterday. According to him we browse pretty much the same sites all the time yet this is the 3 rd time in a year he has had the "child porn" ransomeware. How does that work exactly?


Are the people actually being truthful about the sites they are going to? Did the leave out the part where they double clicked the .exe file that popped up? Were they the only ones with access to the machine?

I think the difference is that you are also running a fully patched PC. These customers will click "Remind me later" all day long for their Windows, flash, java, and browser updates. I'm sure a certain percentage are also not totally truthful, but in the case of repeat infections, I always check the history to see where they've been.

Edit: I run AV at home (wife is pretty click-happy) and I hardly ever get notifications that something has been blocked. If everything is patched properly, your AV shouldn't even come into play.

 

[gunslinger]

I think the difference is that you are also running a fully patched PC. These customers will click "Remind me later" all day long for their Windows, flash, java, and browser updates. I'm sure a certain percentage are also not totally truthful, but in the case of repeat infections, I always check the history to see where they've been.

Edit: I run AV at home (wife is pretty click-happy) and I hardly ever get notifications that something has been blocked. If everything is patched properly, your AV shouldn't even come into play.

I think this pretty much nailed it. So my point is if you are a tech, do you really "need" and AV to stay safe? I think the answer is a resounding NO. Any tech worth his salt should be able to stay pretty much virus and malware free through common sense computing. There will always be the rare worm or zero day exploit that will catch a few but my bet is you would have been infected with those even with an AV.

 

[Rosco]

I don't know about this. I used to think it was mostly drive by attacks but wouldn't the techs on here not running an AV be super vulnerable to them if this was indeed the case? I surf all kinds of sites: I'm a member of maybe 40-50 different forums, at least 6 torrent sites, and I'm always searching for random stuff. If anyone should ever have a drive by infection it should be me, yet I never do. None of the other techs running naked do either. So, Whats the answer? I have a friend from the gym who brought me his computer day before yesterday. According to him we browse pretty much the same sites all the time yet this is the 3 rd time in a year he has had the "child porn" ransomeware. How does that work exactly?


Are the people actually being truthful about the sites they are going to? Did the leave out the part where they double clicked the .exe file that popped up? Were they the only ones with access to the machine?

If it were drive by attacks wouldnt it infect us too?? like gunslinger i search ramdam sites, member how a few forums, and a member at 1 torrent site, plus i use trainers for my games. I am clean. Never had a fbi or a fake av before that.

 

[gunslinger]

If it were drive by attacks wouldnt it infect us too?? like gunslinger i search ramdam sites, member how a few forums, and a member at 1 torrent site, plus i use trainers for my games. I am clean. Never had a fbi or a fake av before that.

Its my understanding that a "drive by" type of infection would depend on you running an out of date version of Java, Flash, ect. If you are not and you have an up to date system I don't see many of these working.


So It seems having an AV or not is not the problem. Patch and update management is. I also think a lot of the techs on here who are hardcore AV pushers most likely sell some type of AV...lol

 

[jft135]

Its my understanding that a "drive by" type of infection would depend on you running an out of date version of Java, Flash, ect. If you are not and you have an up to date system I don't see many of these working.


So It seems having an AV or not is not the problem. Patch and update management is. I also think a lot of the techs on here who are hardcore AV pushers most likely sell some type of AV...lol

End users need AV. Period. The End. That's why I push it so hard. EU's just aren't responsible enough to be trusted to keep everything updated. The AV I sell also handles patch management. That's one of the main reasons I like it.

You, on the other hand, fully understand what you are doing and what risks you are taking. Most importantly, if you break something, you are the one that gets to fix it. That is usually incentive enough to make sure you don't break things.

I use AV on my personal machines for 4 reasons:

1) I need to be familiar with how it works, what it's doing, false positives, etc. so that I can support my clients.
2) I'm a suspenders and a belt type of person.
3) No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to keep other people's grimy fingers off my stuff.

 

[callthatgirl]

I don't run AV on my computer either, I do a lot of testing for clients on my machine and like to see "how things go". But then I realized that I was doing it on my good work computer, so I'm setting up a new computer for that stuff, opening emails, etc. Nothing heavy. But I won't have AV on that one either.

I liked the comment about surfing like a tech and surfing like a customer. My smartest clients have been spoofed into downloading "flash" and it's a horrible feeling for them. They think they are smarter than that. owell.

Good thread GS!

 

[HFultzjr]

I think the difference is that you are also running a fully patched PC. These customers will click "Remind me later" all day long for their Windows, flash, java, and browser updates. I'm sure a certain percentage are also not totally truthful, but in the case of repeat infections, I always check the history to see where they've been.

Edit: I run AV at home (wife is pretty click-happy) and I hardly ever get notifications that something has been blocked. If everything is patched properly, your AV shouldn't even come into play.

^^^^^^

This! Hits the nail right on the head.

A FULLY patched MODERN OS (7 or 8) is very hard to infect.

It is the people who continue to be click happy or think they "can get something" for free.

 

[gunslinger]

Got a laptop in Friday morning with several different infections. Ransomeware, and some things that while not infections are junkware such as the ASK toolbar. You know what it also had on it? AVG antivirus, Spybot S&D, MalwareBytes, and 3-4 things from PC utilities. They were also running Firefox as default. This machine was running 4 GB of RAM and even after the infections were removed was super slow. Remove all the garbage meant to protect it and watch her fly.

 

[jft135]

Got a laptop in Friday morning with several different infections. Ransomeware, and some things that while not infections are junkware such as the ASK toolbar. You know what it also had on it? AVG antivirus, Spybot S&D, MalwareBytes, and 3-4 things from PC utilities. They were also running Firefox as default. This machine was running 4 GB of RAM and even after the infections were removed was super slow. Remove all the garbage meant to protect it and watch her fly.

Spybot is more annoying than all but a few viruses out there. It is on my always remove list in D7.

 

[geranium]

I get all my malware via flash drive from the print shop down on the corner - thanks guys!!! It's nice to have something to pick up the infection when I plug my drive back into my machine.

 

[Zacoalco]

Running naked since 2004 no virus, no malware, no spyware nd no cops.

 

[gunslinger]

Running naked since 2004 no virus, no malware, no spyware nd no cops.

Amazing isn't it? lol

 

[FoolishTech]

So last night I was re-reading some older posts in the AV threads. People admonishing me for not having an anti-virus program installed. "how do you know you are not infected" they yelled. So, after reading this I installed Avast and Malwarebytes on my PC. Updated both and ran a full scan with both. This Windows 7 install has been up and running "naked" for almost exactly one year. After full scans both Malwarebytes and Avast came up completely clean. Amazing! lol

one thing we actually agree on!

not having read this thread entirely I can only add that until 8.x (where I'm just not interested in disabling Defender,) I haven't personally used A/V since ... ever! sometimes having it on secondary rigs for testing purposes, but never on my main. I've been infected twice since I think it was 1995 when I got my first infection, a DOS based virus which I got after downloading a Doom II .wad file from a local BBS.

I am surprised however you didn't have issue with torrent downloads lol I always do that in a VM..

 

[gunslinger]

one thing we actually agree on!

not having read this thread entirely I can only add that until 8.x (where I'm just not interested in disabling Defender,) I haven't personally used A/V since ... ever! sometimes having it on secondary rigs for testing purposes, but never on my main. I've been infected twice since I think it was 1995 when I got my first infection, a DOS based virus which I got after downloading a Doom II .wad file from a local BBS.

I am surprised however you didn't have issue with torrent downloads lol I always do that in a VM..

These days I do most of the torrenting on my Mac. Any software I download is always tested inside a VM first. I really think it just comes down to having a fully patched system and common sense.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

Any software I download is always tested inside a VM first.

What do you test with?