Splitcoaststampers.com - the world's #1 papercrafting community
You're currently viewing Splitcoaststampers as a GUEST. We pride ourselves on being great hosts, but guests have limited access to some of our incredible artwork, our lively forums and other super cool features of the site! You can join our incredible papercrafting community at NO COST. So what are you waiting for?
If your like me, you spend a part of your day visiting your favorite stamping blogs. Well this morning my Mcafee software flashed a warning screen telling me that the blog I was trying to view was infected with a trojan virus. Fortunately it blocked my computer from being infected. I went onto the Mcafee site and found that there is a very serious virus called Operation Aurora that has gotten through 30 big companies security system including Google's security so it's spreading to computers that do not have the 46 virus definition files associated with Aurora installed in your virus protection software.
You do not even have to download anything to get the virus. Just clicking on a blog link without having the Aurora files on your computer is enough to get it into your computer.
Thank you for this. Last fall I clicked on a blog link from here SCS and I got a very nasty virus and I had to do a complete system recovery and I lost everything that was on my computer.
I will never click on another blog link again. This is one thing that I hate in the Gallery as tsome uploads only have a blog link for the details and I cannot click on it for the info.
I received the same thing this morning when blog hopping, my Mcafee stopped it twice. I too was hit last year from this site. Now I am very leary about this. After today I think I may stop.
__________________ Daughter of a King My Blog
Rebekka
Interesting to see that it's just IE it affects at the moment, so Firefox, Safari and other browsers should be safe.
The Stinger utility that they mention under the System Clean Up heading, it's not just available for McAfee subscribers but for anyone. I run it once a month or so on my PC just to check nothing has slipped through the net.
How do you know if your 'puter has a virus? I have security measures and have been fortunate never to have one. What happens?
__________________ If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don't. ~ Jimmy Carter
How do you know if your 'puter has a virus? I have security measures and have been fortunate never to have one. What happens?
I also run had antivirus software but the blog I visited last fall had a virus that slipped through. Sadly there are new viruses created all the time.
After I went to this blog to look at details for a card I got a warning but it was to late as I was already there. Over the next couple of days my computer started freezing and it was running so slow.
Doing the antivirus scans didn't do much to fix it. Then one morning I had no startup screen. It was black. I did take run the system checks and everything and nothing was found but yet it could not fix itself either. So I then took mine to Best Buy as they have a really good scanning device there. THey found the virus and worked on it to get rid of it and then a system recovery had to be done.
you can never be too careful about viruses. like some have posted, if you're unlucky enough to 'find' a brand new virus, your virus protection software may not yet have the catch or fix. it's important to run your virus update tool often so that you get the latest updates to protect yourself.
it's also been my experience that when you take your computer someplace to have the virus removed, it's just easier (and therefore, more cost effective), for them to reformat your drives rather than track down and delete the code that is causing the virus. so IMHO, that should be a last resort ;)
IE is more prone to viruses as well, so consider converting to Mozilla's Firefox. it's different, but once you get used to it, you'll like it ;)
Interesting to see that it's just IE it affects at the moment, so Firefox, Safari and other browsers should be safe.
The Stinger utility that they mention under the System Clean Up heading, it's not just available for McAfee subscribers but for anyone. I run it once a month or so on my PC just to check nothing has slipped through the net.
I to now use Firefox and I LOVE it! MUCh faster and more featured than IE.
And it has warned me about websites and threats. It is a wonderufl bonus that IE does not provide.
I had my computer fix in Oct/Nov. It lasted 3 weeks. It reinfected itself and at Christmas time I took it back to my brother-in-law. I used my daughter's computer and now he is working on 2 computers in his spare time. (not much)
My daughter blames me for infecting her computer with a travle drive. All we did was try to open a file on the drive. It was my list of punches and would not open. The next day her computer crashed, reset itself, and will not go beyond the sign in screen. She keeps telling me there is a program that checks these drives for virus, etc, but but will not help me find a program to check these drives. Is there such a thing? Do I have to throw out 8 travle drives?
This computer is my sons and is a Mac. Will I infect this computer if I try to open a travle drive on it.
I have one travle drive for card making lessions, 3-d itms etc.
another for my family's recipes for food
another for pictures
Another for Girl Scout camp
Another for Girl Scout trainings I help with.
etc.
Do I have to get rid of all these travle drives with info I can not replace?
I just read on another message board that a lot of people have been hit with a trojan from the photobucket website so do you think it can be related...those that upload photos to their blogs from photobucket are spreading virus? I am so computer illiterate its not even funny so I wouldn't know what to do if I got a virus.
I had my computer fix in Oct/Nov. It lasted 3 weeks. It reinfected itself and at Christmas time I took it back to my brother-in-law. I used my daughter's computer and now he is working on 2 computers in his spare time. (not much)
My daughter blames me for infecting her computer with a travle drive. All we did was try to open a file on the drive. It was my list of punches and would not open. The next day her computer crashed, reset itself, and will not go beyond the sign in screen. She keeps telling me there is a program that checks these drives for virus, etc, but but will not help me find a program to check these drives. Is there such a thing? Do I have to throw out 8 travle drives?
This computer is my sons and is a Mac. Will I infect this computer if I try to open a travle drive on it.
I have one travle drive for card making lessions, 3-d itms etc.
another for my family's recipes for food
another for pictures
Another for Girl Scout camp
Another for Girl Scout trainings I help with.
etc.
Do I have to get rid of all these travle drives with info I can not replace?
How can I save them?
Betty
A lot of the companies that supply various anti-virus / malware programs have forums which offer good support.
I use SpyBot Search and Destroy, MalwareBytes and Avast - but only one of them runs in the background; I just use the other two occasionally to check everything has been picked up.
I found Avast best for cleaning external drives when I had a problem with a couple of memory cards. http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
When you have a working pc again, try installing Avast and then plug in your drives - with any luck it will detect the virus and delete it but leave your data intact.
I don't know much about Macs except that while it used to be considered that they were virus-free, that is no longer the case. But I don't think a virus written for Windows would work on a Mac...that's just what I think, not sure knowledge.
I just read on another message board that a lot of people have been hit with a trojan from the photobucket website so do you think it can be related...those that upload photos to their blogs from photobucket are spreading virus? I am so computer illiterate its not even funny so I wouldn't know what to do if I got a virus.
The problem is that the computer who host the blogs, forums and photo galleries got infected by the malware including GOOGLE. So if they can get through the mega security that those companies set up, then no blog or site is completely safe.
For those that use travel drives, my Mcafee software did not scan the travel drive. They want $19.99 extra per year for the program that scans the USB drives. ARGH! I think I pay enough for the software already and shouldn't have to pay them more for a USB drive.
I did have the computer store do a complete scan on everything including my USB drives and they were clean. Their scanning program is much more sophisticated that my regular Mcafee software. They only charged $20 to do a complete virus/malware check plus they cleaned up the hard drive and made my laptop run better.
I had my computer fix in Oct/Nov. It lasted 3 weeks. It reinfected itself and at Christmas time I took it back to my brother-in-law. I used my daughter's computer and now he is working on 2 computers in his spare time. (not much)
My daughter blames me for infecting her computer with a travle drive. All we did was try to open a file on the drive. It was my list of punches and would not open. The next day her computer crashed, reset itself, and will not go beyond the sign in screen. She keeps telling me there is a program that checks these drives for virus, etc, but but will not help me find a program to check these drives. Is there such a thing? Do I have to throw out 8 travle drives?
This computer is my sons and is a Mac. Will I infect this computer if I try to open a travle drive on it.
I have one travle drive for card making lessions, 3-d itms etc.
another for my family's recipes for food
another for pictures
Another for Girl Scout camp
Another for Girl Scout trainings I help with.
etc.
Do I have to get rid of all these travle drives with info I can not replace?
How can I save them?
Betty
Yes you can infect another computer from your travel drive. Do you have a computer store near you? They can run a scan on all your travel drives and remove any viruses they find. They can also remove any that have gotten into the computers. My local computer store charges $20 to run the scans. If they detect a problem, they charge additional hourly rate to clean and remove the viruses.
Macs are your safest bet. I have had the same computer for 8 years now and have never once gotten a virus. I have had slow downs but it is such and easy fix on Macs. All you do is restart. Every time you start up it cleans and repairs itself.
The problem is that the computer who host the blogs, forums and photo galleries got infected by the malware including GOOGLE. So if they can get through the mega security that those companies set up, then no blog or site is completely safe.
For those that use travel drives, my Mcafee software did not scan the travel drive. They want $19.99 extra per year for the program that scans the USB drives. ARGH! I think I pay enough for the software already and shouldn't have to pay them more for a USB drive.
I did have the computer store do a complete scan on everything including my USB drives and they were clean. Their scanning program is much more sophisticated that my regular Mcafee software. They only charged $20 to do a complete virus/malware check plus they cleaned up the hard drive and made my laptop run better.
I've got to say that several years ago I got infected by a Trojan when I had a fully subscribed, up to date and paid up version of McAfee. I also twice had problems with their database updates, one of which ended up with me having to format my drive and reinstall everything. I am sure they have improved over the years, but apart from using Stinger, I have stayed clear ever since and stuck with the free AV programs...
There are a few recent updates from Microsoft to help with Aurora - if you have Automatic Updates switched on, they should have installed automatically.
my McCafee has also quarantined a trojan virus, and I'm sure it was from blog hopping. thanks for the information on the stinger utility, I also downloaded it.
__________________ Carolyn
my avatar: (such desparation), Dear God, if you can't make me thin; make my
friends fat"
Macs are your safest bet. I have had the same computer for 8 years now and have never once gotten a virus. I have had slow downs but it is such and easy fix on Macs. All you do is restart. Every time you start up it cleans and repairs itself.
yup, one of the MANY reasons I {heart} my Mac :mrgreen:
__________________ ~*~Merry~*~ SU Demo since 10/2004
I use Firefox, and I caught a nasty virus several weeks ago that took my husband 3 days to remove. And he works in Internet Security! It was a Malware program that would take us to different sites whenever we wanted to follow up on any type of search results. I also have McAfee, and it didn't pick up on anything. Luckily, we didn't lose anything, but it was touch-and-go for a few days. I couldn't figure out where it came from, but now I'm wondering if it was from a blog.
I use Firefox and LOVE it!! I use Avast on our desktop. When my laptop McAfee runs out next year (pd. for 3 years when I bought it) I will use Avast on it. My dream is to own a Macbook Pro, I'm saving my pennies!!
Not to bash on Avast, we have it and had been pretty happy with it. A few weeks ago, I got a virus that Avast did nothing about. And I am like most of you, not visiting questionable websites, just regular old blog surfing and such. I just mention it, so you know Avast isn't working on everything:(
Not to bash on Avast, we have it and had been pretty happy with it. A few weeks ago, I got a virus that Avast did nothing about. And I am like most of you, not visiting questionable websites, just regular old blog surfing and such. I just mention it, so you know Avast isn't working on everything:(
That's why I run at least one other program once a week . But I've been paranoid ever since the problems I had with McAfee. Because it was late in my cycle of doing a backup, I lost a good bit of stuff. Now I backup fortnightly instead of monthly.
That's why I run at least one other program once a week . But I've been paranoid ever since the problems I had with McAfee. Because it was late in my cycle of doing a backup, I lost a good bit of stuff. Now I backup fortnightly instead of monthly.
I make sure to back up more often too and made it part of my weekly updates and daily i let it update for viruses
but i echo those who say if you remember please let the blog owner know. i would be devastated if my blog was infecting others and i would want to look into it asap. gotta keep our fellow crafters safe out there
I got a virus last fall. The tech from my internet server tried to rid my computer of all the parts of the virus but was only able to do this by getting my computer back to 'out of the box' condition. Needless to say, since my computer was 5 yrs old, (don't use if for much more than just personal stuff so was fine with the speed.) it became virtually useless-too many updates to programs java script/Adobe, etc. needed the previous ones to update to the newest one. Broke down and bought a new system for a moderate4 price since I don't need all the 'bells & whistles'. Why do some people enjoy making others that they don't even know suffer????
I think it was on the My Pink Stamper blog/website that she mentioned this virus that is now making the rounds.
Wow....I got a serious virus (or two or twenty) about a week ago on our laptop and am just now getting back to normal. Wonder if it was related to any of this? My youngest son, who's very computer literate (unlike his mom!) scrubbed it and dumped Windows in favor of the Linux operating system, running Ubuntu. He's been wanting to do this forever, so when the laptop took a dive, I let him have at it. All the Computer Science profs where I work HATE Windows for this very reason and I figure if Linux is good enough for the serious Ph.D. computer geeks, it's good enough for me! ;) It's been surprisingly easy to navigate (sort of a cross between Windows and Mac) and my son swears I won't have the virus issues like before. He's also begged me for months to switch to Google Chrome for my browser, so I'm indulging him on that too. Hope all this limits my exposure...the desktop computer in my craft room is still running on Windows 2007 and I'm just praying that the virus software (it belongs to the university) is sufficient!
Kat
__________________ "Be Still and Know That I Am God" Ps. 46:10
I was at a friends house with my laptop a couple of weeks ago and we BOTH
got a virus by visiting the same webb site, it crashed her computer :twisted:(took several days of professional help to fix) mine was caught by Mcafee.:mrgreen:
Alas I do not know what site we went to as blog hopping is a favorite past time. I had thought it was SCS for awhile because I KNOW that is one site we both visit. But have had no problems since so it can not be SCS.
I sent the original message to my DH who is a computer techie and this is what he had to say (for what it's worth)
Wanda
Your computer is still on McAfee. I've switched mine to Windows Essentials. Your computer runs IE 8 which is less vulnerable than older versions. Also, you have SP3 installed on Win XP which also helps prevent these things from happening. People who don't keep their computers up to date will be vulnerable.
People who don't keep their computers up to date will be vulnerable.
someone else here said it (Andrea maybe?); DAILY updates to your virus program. most of us find this a pain, especially if your computer is older and slower, but new viruses come out all the time. your virus program becomes out dated the second the update is installed -- because new viruses are being created all the time.
I also run had antivirus software but the blog I visited last fall had a virus that slipped through. Sadly there are new viruses created all the time.
After I went to this blog to look at details for a card I got a warning but it was to late as I was already there. Over the next couple of days my computer started freezing and it was running so slow.
Doing the antivirus scans didn't do much to fix it. Then one morning I had no startup screen. It was black. I did take run the system checks and everything and nothing was found but yet it could not fix itself either. So I then took mine to Best Buy as they have a really good scanning device there. THey found the virus and worked on it to get rid of it and then a system recovery had to be done.
Good to know! I guess I've been lucky then. In all my years online (10?) I don't think I've ever gotten one.
I've used a variety of anti-virus programs, all set to automatically update, but only one at a time ~ used Norton for ages, very happy; then had one through the purchase of this puter for a long time; then went to online & free; now have AVG that began as free for a year but I'm happy to pay to keep it.
I'm also not a blog reader/viewer. Once in a while I'll go to see a card, but I really don't have time to do much more. So maybe it's not so much the protection but not coming in contact with the virus.
Whatever it is, I'm glad! LOL!
__________________ If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don't. ~ Jimmy Carter
I just read on another message board that a lot of people have been hit with a trojan from the photobucket website so do you think it can be related...those that upload photos to their blogs from photobucket are spreading virus? I am so computer illiterate its not even funny so I wouldn't know what to do if I got a virus.
I got hit over the weekend looking at someone's photobucket pics. Had to run the recovery discs and lost everything that was on the computer but luckily I had backed up some of the most important things. My brother is living with us at the moment and has every kind of software to fix computers and much knowledge to prevent this from happening again. I don't think I will let him ever move out. He! He!
I had my computer fix in Oct/Nov. It lasted 3 weeks. It reinfected itself and at Christmas time I took it back to my brother-in-law. I used my daughter's computer and now he is working on 2 computers in his spare time. (not much)
My daughter blames me for infecting her computer with a travle drive. All we did was try to open a file on the drive. It was my list of punches and would not open. The next day her computer crashed, reset itself, and will not go beyond the sign in screen. She keeps telling me there is a program that checks these drives for virus, etc, but but will not help me find a program to check these drives. Is there such a thing? Do I have to throw out 8 travle drives?
This computer is my sons and is a Mac. Will I infect this computer if I try to open a travle drive on it.
I have one travle drive for card making lessions, 3-d itms etc.
another for my family's recipes for food
another for pictures
Another for Girl Scout camp
Another for Girl Scout trainings I help with.
etc.
Do I have to get rid of all these travle drives with info I can not replace?
How can I save them?
Betty
On Jan 2nd I ended up with a virus that stuck me in the logon loop as well. I went to geekstogo.com, where they have forums you can post your problems in and they tell you step by step what to do. I had limited time, and a real mess, so it took me about a week to get back up and running. But I didn't lose anything and it's free! Check it out, maybe they can help you!
A lot of the companies that supply various anti-virus / malware programs have forums which offer good support.
I use SpyBot Search and Destroy, MalwareBytes and Avast - but only one of them runs in the background; I just use the other two occasionally to check everything has been picked up.
I found Avast best for cleaning external drives when I had a problem with a couple of memory cards. http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
When you have a working pc again, try installing Avast and then plug in your drives - with any luck it will detect the virus and delete it but leave your data intact.
I don't know much about Macs except that while it used to be considered that they were virus-free, that is no longer the case. But I don't think a virus written for Windows would work on a Mac...that's just what I think, not sure knowledge.
Thanks for your help. I will print off your info to save for when I get a computer back.
I knew I go into withdrawlers when I can not get on line and SCS for awhilte.
WARNING: Serious virus threat on blog sites
gotta keep our fellow crafters safe out there 
