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When viruses strike
12:30 pm Jun 6 - by Tim Anderson – buzz Writer
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This past week I’ve been struggling from the fallout my computer and I had to suffer through after being struck by a potentially deadly virus.
The System Security 2009 virus was so devilishly well disguised that I’m very impressed with it in hindsight. I’m choosing to adopt the “you were a worthy foe” mentality about the situation. The virus adopts a wolf in sheep’s clothing kind of thing, masquerading as a helpful virus scan program.
Once one contracts the virus, it installs itself onto the desktop with a medieval shield icon which reads boldly “SYSTEM SECURITY.” From then on, obnoxious and threatening pop-up balloons will issue from the toolbar exclaiming that “Your computer is infected and at serious risk.” Clicking one of these balloons launches the System Security program which performs a fake virus scan (only to reveal that my computer is crawling with crippling viruses) and changes your wallpaper to a black background with blood red text in all bolded caps, explaining the seriousness of your virus situation.
Once the scan runs, you are forwarded to a Paypal style website that encourages your credit card information in exchange for a “subscription” to this service which promises to clean these phantom viruses. At this point I had realized that I was being double-crossed by what I assumed to be the only program that could save my hard drive. I unplugged my external drive to make sure the virus didn’t spread, and exited the window. The program gave me a sinister “are you sure? System Security needs to cleanse your computer” option, which I assured that I was sure. The virus didn’t like that. It might have even known the jig was up.
So my computer stopped working.
Folders, documents, and files wouldn’t open. Programs wouldn’t respond. The virus halted any automatic or manual processes on my computer, and that’s when expletives started pouring into my mind.
Long story short, I killed the virus by performing a simple system restore and a virus scan afterward to make sure I wouldn’t have that problem ever again. Here’s what I took away from it:
- Create System Restore Points early and often.
- Back-up your documents and media files.
- Trust your firewall. (Or if you don’t have one, get one. See the Digital Domain about Windows Live OneCare).
Fortunately, my computer is feeling much better now and thus so am I.
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