Still no infection

[gunslinger]

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


No surprise to me of course. I do regular web surfing with this system, download software updates for my mobile kits, Torrents, ect. As a side note, my other system is an iMac. Been up and going about 3 years (with an upgrade install of Mavericks recently). No AV. Anyone wanna take a bet on it being infected?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I'm actually surprised. I run mbam pro and avast on my home pc and have had to clean it out every so often, and I don't get on illegal sites, steam except maybe occasionally Netflix or from my dish network account, no torrents etc.

 

[cypress]

Wow downloading Torrents and all and still no infection?

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

There is no reason not to run an AV. New exploits come and go all the time no one is immune.

I'm not immune either I run bitdefender and malware bytes but a fresh enough exploit and virus still has a chance to get me. The difference is at least if I don't notice any symptoms im going to be notified in the near future from definition updates you on the other hand will not.

Edit: on top of that if you arent running an AV you wont notice one of the most common signs which is the tampering of the security center / av.

 

[gunslinger]

There is no reason not to run an AV. New exploits come and go all the time no one is immune.

I'm not immune either I run bitdefender and malware bytes but a fresh enough exploit and virus still has a chance to get me. The difference is at least if I don't notice any symptoms im going to be notified in the near future from definition updates you on the other hand will not.

Edit: on top of that if you arent running an AV you wont notice one of the most common signs which is the tampering of the security center / av.

My reason for not running an AV is pretty simple. Its not worth the fuss of dealing with it when I'm putting together or updating tools on my flash drives and external HDDs. Have you ever inserted your flash drive into a customers PC just to have Norton or AVG start deleting all your tools? Happened to me often enough I didn't want to have to deal with it regularly on mine. Also why take the performance hit? Its pretty obvious I can run without one and be fine so why run with it? I make good backups regularly so no worries about data loss.

Side note: I stopped installing AV on my computer around 2004. Only one infection since.

 

[TechPJC]

Apart from MBAM and avast!, did you try other Tools?

[Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool, Hitman Pro, Emsisoft Emergency Kit, AdwCleaner, RogueKiller, Junkware Removal Tool, GMER, Kaspersky TDSSKiller etc.]

 

[gunslinger]

Apart from MBAM and avast!, did you try other Tools?

[Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool, Hitman Pro, Emsisoft Emergency Kit, AdwCleaner, RogueKiller, Junkware Removal Tool, GMER, Kaspersky TDSSKiller etc.]

No, but I can in a few. Will update.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I wouldn't get too smug about it. All it takes is one breach and it could end up being a major PITA. One of my customers with a new Win8 Dell laptop didn't have other than Windows Defender that came with it, and had $1,400 taken from his bank account within minutes of being phished. I'm not sure if the bank covered the loss, but here's the PITA part:

To date:

• Both credit cards shut down, replacements ordered,
• Equifax Credit Co and TransUnionCredit advised, alerts posted
• Bell notified, they already knew, accounts are safe, no password changes required
• Bank account closed, new one opened and functional
• Free version of Avast installed, full scan run, no threats detected

Tomorrow:

• Federal government re compomised social insurance number
• MTO re compromised driver's licence

 

[gunslinger]

Scans with JRT, TDSS Killer and Adwcleaner all clean. I must be the luckiest guy out on the interwebs.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

rogue killer? Did you do a boot scan of avast in case things were hiding you didn't see? To the guy above who had a client get compromised, if you have lifetime mbam licenses left, I'd suggest selling them one. Reason being that I also use Avast Free edition on my home pc. Started noticing extra processes in process manager, scanned with mbam and found some backdoor trojans that had snuck by. Killed those off, still had an old mbam pro license I'd never activated, so onto the PC it went.

 

[gunslinger]

rogue killer? Did you do a boot scan of avast in case things were hiding you didn't see?

I'll have to download a fresh copy of rogue killer and run it in a little while. I did not do a boot scan, but I figure if Avast, MalwareBytes, Adwcleaner, JRT and TDSS are all coming up clean, chances are pretty good the system is clean.


What I'm wondering is why everyone is so shocked? I'm kinda worried about any technician that can't keep a clean PC without an AV. Not talking bad about anyone in particular. I just don't understand the perceived "need" for an AV. This is not rocket surgery people. I don't surf porn sites on the PC, I don't install software I don't fully trust, and I install Windows updates regularly. Thats it.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

See I try to be relatively cautious, and have still gotten infected even with AV, I also figure that with Avast, the performance hit is pretty small, so why not run it.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I can say the same thing about many of my computers, I've run them "naked"..but I don't think it's the smartest thing to do, I've done that with my home computers.

I ride my motorcycle without a helmet either...yes I acknowledge it's stupid and irresponsible since I have a wife and kids. But that's just it...I don't go "Look..I'm still alive, I don't need a helmet!"

It's not just having an attitude of "I'm too smart to get a virus" that keeps you clean....I remember one day several years ago, when the US Gov't was doing the bailout of auto makers in Detroit, one morning I went to the United Auto Workers website to do some reading on unions.
I got 1x page into the UAW main website..and "BAM"....the popup screen of "PAV" jumped up in my face. PAV was one of the early "rogues/fake alerts"...Personal Anti Virus. I immediately recognized it and knew was it was..and shut it down quickly. No remnants on my computer.

I also remember back when I used to hang out at hard ocp forums..that guy had his forums hacked into at least once a year, with some drive-by install of malware inserted into it. One would figure most IT guys trust a tech forum, right? It's not risk like if you were surfing porn, or at some warez site...right? Nope..wrong!

 

[coffee]

Your just not going to the right sites thats all.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/te...sinfected-websites-exposed-20090820-erc8.html

Let me know how long you last Gunslinger



coffee

 

[gunslinger]

I can say the same thing about many of my computers, I've run them "naked"..but I don't think it's the smartest thing to do, I've done that with my home computers.

I ride my motorcycle without a helmet either...yes I acknowledge it's stupid and irresponsible since I have a wife and kids. But that's just it...I don't go "Look..I'm still alive, I don't need a helmet!"

It's not just having an attitude of "I'm too smart to get a virus" that keeps you clean....I remember one day several years ago, when the US Gov't was doing the bailout of auto makers in Detroit, one morning I went to the United Auto Workers website to do some reading on unions.
I got 1x page into the UAW main website..and "BAM"....the popup screen of "PAV" jumped up in my face. PAV was one of the early "rogues/fake alerts"...Personal Anti Virus. I immediately recognized it and knew was it was..and shut it down quickly. No remnants on my computer.

I also remember back when I used to hang out at hard ocp forums..that guy had his forums hacked into at least once a year, with some drive-by install of malware inserted into it. One would figure most IT guys trust a tech forum, right? It's not risk like if you were surfing porn, or at some warez site...right? Nope..wrong!

I understand what you are saying. I can only speak from personal experience. Maybe I'm just very lucky? I don't seem to get infected on any of my personal machines. Would running an AV all these years have done anything for me? Other than being annoying and eating up RAM?

Your just not going to the right sites thats all.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...0820-erc8.html

Let me know how long you last Gunslinger



coffee

Challenge accepted! I'll go to each one on my Mac and get back with you....lol

 

[coffee]

Remember the rules of this game though:

You have to surf like a customer - not a tech. Thats probably your problem. Just surf the web and think like a customer. Shouldnt take long and you will be brimming with viruses

coffee

 

[altrenda]

You might want to be a little careful with your Mac right now, since they haven't patched the SSL bug on OS X yet. I wouldn't test it by going to your bank account.

http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2014/02/apples-massive-goto-fail-fixed-in-ios-but-not-in-os-x/

 

[mr m]

To me an AV appl is cheap insurance. Yeah, any AV product will slow you down some but I don't notice it on my bench rig.

It's not just porn sites hiding malware anymore. I watched a kid click a pop up on disney.com after I distinctly told him not to. His parents weren't too happy about their click-happy son infecting the pc right after I swapped the HDD.

 

[gunslinger]

Remember the rules of this game though:

You have to surf like a customer - not a tech. Thats probably your problem. Just surf the web and think like a customer. Shouldnt take long and you will be brimming with viruses

coffee

I was actually thinking about using my VMs and going to those sites with OS X, Win 7, Win 8 and Linux Mint all naked and see what happens.

To me an AV appl is cheap insurance. Yeah, any AV product will slow you down some but I don't notice it on my bench rig.

It's not just porn sites hiding malware anymore. I watched a kid click a pop up on disney.com after I distinctly told him not to. His parents weren't too happy about their click-happy son infecting the pc right after I swapped the HDD.

You can't fix stupid. You would never be able to install enough protection on a machine to protect people from themselves. This is my point. I have been infected once in 10 years for two reasons, 1) I don't do stupid things online 2) I guess I'm lucky. Since no AV catches everything anyway and I make good regular backups I have never personally seen the need for an AV on my systems. Funny thing is about 11-12 years ago I was on the opposite side of that argument. I was banned from a tech forum by a guy named Ray, the creator of Regvac software for Windows XP. At that time I had installed on my personal machine, Norton AV, Adaware, SypwareBlaster, Spybot S&D and 2-3 other things I can't recall. He argued that the performance hit I was taking and the aggravation was worse than any infection I'd likely get. Turns out he was correct. These days I run all my personal systems naked. I back up critical files daily and do an image about once a week. You only think your system is fast until you tweak one and run it without AV.

 

[coffee]

I was actually thinking about using my VMs and going to those sites with OS X, Win 7, Win 8 and Linux Mint all naked and see what happens.

Every now and again I will run into a site thats infected and want to give me a file (*.exe) and I just accept the download and put in in my /home/coffee/VIRUS directory. I kinda save em up and then kinda pull them apart in linux.

I dont think your gonna have much issues with OSX or linux. But that windows is gonna deep six on yah. Ummmm. You did install java and flash in order to get the WHOLE internet experience right? <grin>.

coffee